By [having] faith, he became an alien in the foreign country that had been promised to him. He lived in tents, along with Isaac [his son] and Jacob [his grandson], who [also] were to receive the same inheritance he had been promised.

And God had spoken about this [beforehand] by saying that Abraham's descendants would live in a foreign country and that they would [eventually] be ill-treated as slaves for four hundred years.

When Moses heard this, he ran away and traveled to the country of Midian where he settled down and had two sons.

So, if I do not know the meaning of the sound [i.e., language], I will [appear] as a foreigner to the person speaking [that language to me]. And the person speaking [to me] will [appear] as a foreigner to me.

[This is being written by] Jesus' apostle Peter, to God's people who are scattered throughout the countries of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia. [Note: These places are located in present-day Turkey].

These people [all] continued to have faith until they died, [even though] they had not obtained [all] the things God had promised, but had [only] seen them and welcomed them from a distance. And they had confessed to being strangers and aliens on earth.

My dearly loved ones, I urge you, as a people who are foreigners and strangers [in this world], do not give in to sinful desires, which wage war against the soul.

And if you call upon [God as] your Father, who judges each person's work impartially, [then] conduct yourselves during the time you spend in this life showing reverence [to God].