'Pits' in the Bible

Now the Valley of Siddim was full of tar (bitumen) pits; and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell into them. But the remainder [of the kings] who survived fled to the hill country.

When the men of Israel saw that they were in a tight situation (for their troops were hard-pressed), they hid in caves, in thickets, in cellars, and in [dry] cisterns (pits).

“Let burning coals fall upon them;Let them be thrown into the fire,Into deep [water] pits from which they cannot rise.

The wicked become a ransom for the righteous,And the treacherous in the place of the upright [for they fall into their own traps].

“They did not say, ‘Where is the LordWho brought us up from the land of Egypt,Who led us through the wilderness,Through a land of deserts and of pits,Through a land of drought and of the deep darkness [of the shadow of death],Through a land that no man passed throughAnd where no man lived?’

Draw water for a [long, continued] siege!Strengthen your fortresses!Go down to the clay pits, trample the mortar!Prepare the brick kiln [to burn bricks for the rampart]!