For The Sake Of 10 Righteous People

The Yahweh of the Old Testament and the Father of the New Testament are one and the same.  Jesus does not introduce mercy into Biblical narratives for the first time, and neither he nor the Father is devoid of wrath throughout the stories and prophecies of the New Testament.  Amidst judgment itself, the morality of which all personal or collective emotions and preferences are irrelevant to, there is still mercy in some of the more controversial Biblical accounts of the Old Testament.  An example is the events leading to the annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah, which conservatives might pretend was mostly or exclusively over homosexual behaviors and liberals might pretend had nothing to do with them.  

As an aside, the Bible does not teach that Sodom and Gomorrah continually burn and I have yet to hear any reports of an endless fire raging in the Middle East to the present day!  This destruction of the city and the deaths of its inhabitants in fire and sulfur (Genesis 18:24-25) are said by Peter to be an example of what the wicked will receive (2 Peter 2:6), which perfectly matches what the Bible teaches from start to finish about how fallen humanity is to perish forever unless eternal life is secured through repentance and commitment to God (John 3:16).  Before the destruction actually comes in the narrative, though, there is an exchange between Abraham and the (at the least) angelic mouthpieces of God that touches upon divine mercy--and death on Earth and in hell is the justice rather than a mercy.  A negotiation on behalf of the city takes place once angelic visitors tell Abraham that they will investigate if the land is as vile as they have heard.

Abraham acknowledges that justice is not killing the righteous and the wicked as if they are all alike (Genesis 18:22), with God initially promising to spare the entire city of Sodom if only 50 righteous people live there (18:26).  This is not enough to ease Abraham: he asks for 45 good people to be enough, and he is promised that 45 righteous people will ensure the population of the city is left alive (18:28).  Eventually, Abraham begins substracting 10 people at a time until he requests that a mere 10 people who are righteous be a reason for mercy towards Sodom (18:32-33).  The angelic beings move on to the city and are urged by Lot to spend the night in his home.  After a very threatening encounter with a group of men who want to have sex with the newcomers, in which the potential rapists are struck with blindness, the angels ask Lot to warn his family or friends to escape (19:12-14).

Lot and his daughters, who later rape Lot (19:30-36) and thus deserve to die themselves (Deuteronomy 22:25-27), are escorted to safety out of mercy when Lot himself hesitates to depart (Genesis 19:16).  Because they are told to leave rather than stay to avoid the impending catastrophe (19:12-13), not even 10 righteous people Abraham pleaded for lived in the city, and its annihilation was not to be averted.  In spite of this, that God expressed a willingness to spare the entire city for the sake of just 10 righteous individuals shows a mercy that so many assume is only found in the New Testament.  Yahweh is merciful in the Old Testament over and over; there is also great judgment that occurs or is at least discussed in the New Testament, with nothing about Yahweh's moral nature or the resulting obligations of justice for humans changing (Malachi 3:6).

In the first death or the second--which is the permanent end of the mind as the resurrected body of the wicked is burned to ashes--Yahweh does not find pleasure in the wicked perishing even as it is what they deserve.  According to Ezekiel 33:11, "'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.'"  The God whose nature grounds morality itself prefers for the wicked to be restored to him rather than to be lost to him in this life and then eventually cease to exist in the second death (Matthew 10:28, Revelation 20:11-15).  The inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah are examples of those who receive the first death and the second, according to Genesis and 2 Peter, and yet Yahweh is not elated at their demise.  Even as the ultimate fate for the wicked in the first and second life is death, God would go so far as to spare the wicked for the sake of the righteous, as the prelude to the cities' destruction emphasizes.  The Old Testament teaches divine mercy indeed.