Matthew 2:11–23

¹¹On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.^f Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts^g of gold, frankincense and myrrh. ¹²And having been warned^h in a dreamⁱ not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

The Escape to Egypt

¹³When they had gone, an angel^j of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.^k “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”^l

¹⁴So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, ¹⁵where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled^m what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”^cn

¹⁶When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. ¹⁷Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:^o

¹⁸“A voice is heard in Ramah,

weeping and great mourning,

Rachel^p weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.”^dq

The Return to Nazareth

¹⁹After Herod died, an angel^r of the Lord appeared in a dream^s to Joseph in Egypt ²⁰and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”^t

²¹So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. ²²But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream,^u he withdrew to the district of Galilee,^{v 23}and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth.^w So was fulfilled^x what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.^y