It is true when I say to you, the districts around Sodom and Gomorrah [i.e., despite their gross sins] will be shown more leniency than that town on the day of judgment.

And, as Isaiah had said in a previous passage [1:9], "If the Lord of the [heavenly] armies [i.e., Almighty God] had not left us some descendants [i.e., a small minority], we would have become like Sodom; He would have made us like Gomorrah [i.e., destroyed]."

and if God also condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by reducing them to ashes, thereby condemning them to catastrophic destruction, and making them an example to other ungodly people in the future;

So also, in a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah, and their surrounding towns, which had abandoned themselves to sexual immorality and [sexually] perverted behavior, serve as an example [of people] who [will] suffer the punishment of never ending fire.