They possibly tried to. That is certainly the modern interpretation, but it is not clear that the ancient Hebrews saw it that way. Some biblical scholars have suggested that the link of Sodom with homosexuality came from the 1st century Jewish philosopher Philo.

According to the OT, god sent two messengers, angels, to visit Lot. The mob demanded that Lot bring them out so that they might "know" them, but the angels blinded them. The word translated as "know" can be understood in two ways: to be interrogated (presumably violently) or as a euphemism for sex. The original word is the Hebrew verb ידע ("yada"), which is used more than 900 times in the Hebrew Bible. Only a dozen or so of those times is the word meant as a euphemism for sex.

The OT and other Hebrew texts makes it clear that the sins of Sodom were arrogance, cruelty, lack of hospitality, dishonesty and uncharitableness. The people of Sodom were cruel and ungodly. Ezekiel 16:49–50 says "This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it." (The word "abominable" there comes from the Hebrew word "toevah", which is better translated as "taboo" or "forbidden".)

Jeremiah and Isaiah similarly consider the sins of Sodom to be their cruelty and arrogance. The Book of Amos states that the Sodomites' sins were oppressing the poor and crushing the needy.

Biblical scholar Jay Michaelson emphasises that the sin was the violent violation of the rules of hospitality: "Homosexual rape is the way in which they violate hospitality—not the essence of their transgression. Reading the story of Sodom as being about homosexuality is like reading the story of an ax murderer as being about an ax."

Other Hebrew texts make it clear that the crimes of Sodom were economic crimes and bloodshed: they extorted money from travellers, punished victims of crime for the acts committed by the perpetrator, tortured visitors, tormented beggars and allowed them to starve, etc. The judges of the city were named as Shakrai ("Liar"), Shakurai ("Awful Liar"), Zayyafi ("Forger") and Mazle Dina ("Perverter of Justice"). Charity to the poor was a capital crime, and Hebrew texts describe women who gave charity to the poor being burned alive. According to the Book Of Jasher (omitted from the Christian Bible), one of Lot's daughters was burned alive for giving a poor man a piece of bread to eat. For the crime of giving a traveller a drink of water, another woman was stripped naked, covered in honey, and left to die slowly by being stung to death by bees.

It is notable that another Biblical story, that of the Levite's concubine, involves a very similar premise. A man visits another city. The men of the city attempt to rape him, and he offers his concubine to them in his stead. But this time the city men accept the exchange, and rape the woman to death. As punishment, the guilty tribe was almost wiped out. This suggests that the sin was rape, not homosexual sex.