In this painting, David Teniers the Younger has portrayed one of the most dramatic scenes in the Bible—the escape of Lot and his daughters from the city of Sodom (Genesis 19). Abraham had been unable to persuade God to spare the five sinful cities of the Jordan valley, even though his virtuous kinsman Lot lived in the region, and at very short notice an angel orders Lot and his family to flee. As they are leaving, the cities are destroyed by fire and brimstone raining down from heaven. In the lower right corner of Teniers’s painting, the angel leads Lot and his two daughters away from the cataclysm taking place behind them. Further back on the road is the dark and haunting figure of Lot’s wife, who, having disobeyed the command not to turn around and look, has been turned into a pillar of salt. The backgound is filled with the scene of desctruction. On the right is a walled city with towers and a gate topped with a spire, from which flames already emerge. In the sky above, winged angels emerge from the dark clouds in a burst of light, sending out bolts of lighting. A winged demon flees off to the right—a didactic symbol of the purification of the doomed city below. The whole scene is thinly painted in brownish tones that underscore the sombre theme of divine punishment.