With what awe and wonder did I lift up my eyes to behold the plain of Jordan. Abram himself, the very man of the great God spoke it plainly that this land is mine. It is well watered everywhere, like the very garden of God, yes even like the fertile land of Egypt with its wondrous Nile.
Yes, and the great cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are themselves much like Egyptian cities. They are places where man has learned to put down roots and to build a society, even as we once lived in Ur as proper Chaldeans. Whether Chaldean, or Egyptian, or Canaanite, let me live in a great city such as one of these. A place of alabaster vases and gold jewelry, statues of beautiful men and animals, and mosaics of precious stones depicting the wisdom of the ages. Even to live in the least little town of Canaan, as insignificant as Zoar, is better than to live as Abram seems determined to live, in the wild places with flocks that must constantly migrate in search of green pastures.
Furthermore, with war on the horizon, how much better to dwell among these mighty twin cities than in some small and vulnerable village?
And so I decided then and there, as my eyes beheld the plain, that I and my family would dwell in Sodom. I had met not a few Sodomites when we passed this way before, and could testify that they are a people courageous and free, living life to the full and confronting the nothingness of death with humor and greatness of soul.
I confess I did not mourn to separate from the household of Abram. It is true that in doing so I forfeited my inheritance, but so did Abram in separating from Terah. Sometimes a man of great vision must depart from the ways of his fathers and start something fresh and new. In Sodom, I would live richly and freely as the Sodomites do, and hire others to shepherd my flocks while I remained in the city with my wife and daughters.
So we headed east to the civilized country, and Abram journeyed to the more remote region of Mamre and his brothers, Enau and Eschol, who like him prefer the rugged life of the tent-dwelling outdoorsmen.