Genesis 19:18-22

"And Lot said unto them, Oh, not so my lord: behold now, thy servant hath found favour in thy sight, and thou hast magnified thy lovingkindness, which thou hast shown unto me in saving my life; and I cannot escape to the mountains, lest evil overtake me, and I die. Behold now, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one. Oh let me escape thither (is it not a little one?), and my soul shall live. And he said unto him, See, I have accepted thee concerning this thing also, that I will not overthrow the city of which thou hast spoken. Haste thee, escape thither; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither. Therefore, the name of the city was called Zoar."

"Lot said unto them ... and he said ..." Some expositors find a problem with the alternating plural and singular in this passage, but in certain statements "the angels" were giving the word of "the Lord," and that accounts for the changes which are easily understood. How amazingly inadequate are those comments which mention "separate sources" as an explanation of this.

It is quite evident here that not merely Sodom and Gomorrah, but other cities were destroyed at the same time, Zoar being spared only upon the intercession of Lot. "Archaeological explorations within the last decade have shown that at the time of Abraham there were five large cities on the eastern side of the southern portion of the Dead Sea."[14] The names of these were Sodom, the southernmost, Gomorrah, Zoar, Admah, and Zeboiim in order toward the north. This sheds light on Jude 1:1:7, where these other cities are the subject of the clause stating that they too had given themselves over to fornication, etc., "in like manner" to Sodom and Gomorrah. See also Deuteronomy 29:23, and Hosea 11:8.