Scriptures

New Living Translation (NLT)

Matthew 2
⁹ After this interview the wise men went their way. And the star they had seen in the east guided them to Bethlehem. It went ahead of them and stopped over the place where the child was.
¹⁰ When they saw the star, they were filled with joy!
¹¹ They entered the house and saw the child with his mother, Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasure chests and gave him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
¹² When it was time to leave, they returned to their own country by another route, for God had warned them in a dream not to return to Herod.
¹³ After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”
¹⁴ That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother,
¹⁵ and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.”
¹⁶ Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent soldiers to kill all the boys in and around Bethlehem who were two years old and under, based on the wise men’s report of the star’s first appearance.
¹⁷ Herod’s brutal action fulfilled what God had spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
¹⁸ “A cry was heard in Ramah— weeping and great mourning. Rachel weeps for her children, refusing to be comforted, for they are dead.”
¹⁹ When Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt.