The flavour of the word Peter uses here is neatly illustrated in Hebrews 11:8–16 (with the identical word in Hebrews 11:13), where the author describes Abraham as on a journey “in a foreign land, living in tents.” Abraham was a dislocated person, uprooted from his homeland, of no fixed address; we might even say, an asylum seeker. Abraham had a vision, though, for he “was looking forward to the city that has foundations” and saw that “better country” from afar. Peter similarly identifies his readers as dislocated persons who do not really feel at home in their neighbourhood. As we think of the Jews whom Nebuchadnezzar had exiled from Jerusalem into Babylon, with its foreign language and customs, and their own sense of uprootedness and poverty, we can pick up a sense of what being an exile is like. Peter uses the same word again in 1 Peter 2:11.