13. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.
14. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own.
15. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return.
16. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
17. By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son,
18. even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’