¹⁶Herod realized that the Wise Men had tricked him. So he became very angry. He gave orders concerning Bethlehem and the area around it. All the boys two years old and under were to be killed. This agreed with the time when the Wise Men had seen the star.

¹⁷In this way, the words the prophet Jeremiah spoke came true. He had said,

¹⁸“A voice is heard in Ramah.

It’s the sound of crying and deep sadness.

Rachel is crying over her children.

She refuses to be comforted,

because they are gone.”

Jesus’ Family Returns to Nazareth

¹⁹After Herod died, Joseph had a dream while he was still in Egypt. In the dream an angel of the Lord appeared to him. ²⁰The angel said, “Get up! Take the child and his mother. Go to the land of Israel. Those who were trying to kill the child are dead.”

²¹So Joseph got up. He took the child and his mother Mary back to the land of Israel. ²²But then he heard that Archelaus was king of Judea. Archelaus was ruling in place of his father Herod. This made Joseph afraid to go there.

Warned in a dream, Joseph went back to the land of Galilee instead. ²³There he lived in a town called Nazareth. So what the prophets had said about Jesus came true. They had said, “He will be called a Nazarene.”

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