Germany: Lot leaving Sodom. Lot's wife, already transformed into a salt pillar, stands in the centre. Woodcut from the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel, 1493

Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and in deuterocanonical sources, as well as in the Qur'an.

Divine judgment by God was passed upon Sodom and Gomorrah and two neighboring cities, which were completely consumed by fire and brimstone. In Abrahamic religions, Sodom and Gomorrah have become synonymous with impenitent sin, and their fall with a proverbial manifestation of divine retribution.

Sodom and Gomorrah have been used as metaphors for vice and homosexuality viewed as a deviation. The story has therefore given rise to words in several languages, including the English word sodomy, used in sodomy laws to describe a sexual 'crime against nature'.

The historicity of Sodom and Gomorrah is still in dispute by archaeologists, as little archaeological evidence has ever been found in the regions where they were supposedly situated.

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