that life.173 The pastor pictures the situation of his hearers as analogous to God’s people of old who had not yet entered the Promised Land (3:7–4:11; 11:1–31).174 Furthermore, even they were seeking the heavenly “City” rather than an earthly country (11:8–16).175 Thus, the irrelevance of the earthly Temple’s destruction to the author’s argument eliminates the pastor’s failure to mention this event as a means of dating this sermon.176 It also makes it unlikely that he was writing to warn believers
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