Hebrews 11:7-16

7Noah believed God too. God told Noah about bad things that would happen. Nobody could see what would happen, but Noah believed God's message. He was careful to do exactly what God told him. He built a large ship to save his family. As a result of his faith, Noah showed that everyone else in the world was wrong. Noah himself became one of those people that God accepted as right with him. They are right with God because they trust him.

8Abraham also believed God. When God told him to leave his home, he obeyed God. He left his home to go to another country, but he did not know where he was going. It was the place that God had promised to give to Abraham.

9Because of his faith, Abraham went to live like a stranger in that foreign country. God had promised to give that country to him, but Abraham lived there in tents. Isaac and Jacob also lived there in tents like strangers. God had also promised them that the land would belong to them one day.

10We see that Abraham was waiting to live in God's special place. That is the city that God himself has built. God has made it very strong so that it will be there for ever.

11Abraham and his wife, Sarah, were too old to have children. But Abraham believed God's promise that they would have children. He trusted God to do what he had promised. As a result of his faith, God made it possible for him and Sarah to have a baby.

12Abraham was so old that he was almost like a dead man. But from this one man there came very many grandchildren. His family became so large that nobody could count them. They were like the number of stars in the sky. They were as many as the bits of sand on the shore of the sea.

13All these people continued to believe God until they died. But they did not receive all the things that God had promised to give them. They were like people who saw those things far away. That made them happy. These people understood that they lived as strangers and travellers on the earth.

14People who live in that way show that they expect to live somewhere else one day. That is the place where they will really be at home.

15They were not thinking about the country that they had left. They could have gone back there if they really wanted to.

16No, they wanted very much to go to a better place, in heaven. For that reason, God is not ashamed for them to call him their God. He has already prepared a city for them to live in.