Matthew 2:16–23

Herod Slaughters Babies

¹⁶Then when Herod saw that he had been tricked by ^athe magi, he became very enraged, and sent and ^bslew all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its vicinity, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the magi.

¹⁷Then what had been spoken through Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled:

¹⁸“^aA voice was heard in Ramah,

Weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children;

And she refused to be comforted,

Because they were no more.”

¹⁹But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord ^aappeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, and said,

²⁰“Get up, take the Child and His mother, and go into the land of Israel; for those who sought the Child’s life are dead.”

²¹So ¹Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel.

²²But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Then after being ^awarned by God in a dream, he left for the regions of Galilee,

²³and came and lived in a city called ^aNazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: “He shall be called a ^bNazarene.”