Matthew Chapter 2

The Visit of the Magi

            ¹ When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Judaea, during the reign of King Herod ^{the Great}, Magi from the East arrived in Jerusalem, ²“Where’s the newborn king of the Jews? In the East we saw his star and have come to pay him homage.” ³ That disturbed Herod and the whole city as well. ⁴ He called in the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah was to be born.

⁵They said, “In Bethlehem, Judaea. The prophet wrote,

⁶ ‘You, Bethlehem, Judah,

                                    are by no means least among the leading cities of Judah,

                        because a leader will come out of you

to shepherd my people Israel’” [Mic 5:2].

⁷ Herod privately called the Magi to find out when the star had appeared, ⁸ and sent them to Bethlehem, “Look for the child carefully. When you find him, let me know so I can come and pay him homage too.”

⁹ So they started out, and the star they’d seen back East started going ahead of them till it stood above where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they were elated. ¹¹ They went into the house and saw the child with Mary his mother and bowed down in homage to him. They opened their treasure chests and brought him gold, frankincense, and myrrh. ¹² God warned them in a dream not to go back to Herod, so they took a different route home.                                                                                                                                  

Mt 2:1-12

The Flight to Egypt

the Slaughter of the Infants

            ¹³ When they’d gone, an angel of the LORD appeared to Joseph in a dream, “Get up and hurry to Egypt with the child and his mother. Stay there till I tell you. Herod intends to look for the child to destroy him.” ¹⁴ Joseph got up during the night and took them to Egypt. ¹⁵ He stayed there till Herod died—in keeping with what the LORD said by the prophet,

“I’ve called my son out of Egypt” [Hos 11:1].

            ¹⁶ When Herod saw the Magi had tricked him, he was enraged and had all the male children killed in and around Bethlehem—the ones two years old and under as figured from the time the Magi told him. ¹⁷ That paralleled what the prophet Jeremiah said,

¹⁸ “A sound was heard in Ramah,

                                    weeping and bitter crying;

Rachel

was weeping for her children.

She wouldn’t be consoled;

                                    they were gone” [Jer 31:15].                                                            

Mt 2:13-18

The Return from Egypt and Settlement in Nazareth

¹⁹ After Herod died, the angel appeared^p to Joseph in a dream in Egypt, ²⁰ “Get up and take the child and his mother to Israel. The ones that were trying to kill him have died.” ²¹ He got up and took them to Israel; ²² but when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judaea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. God warned him in a dream, and he withdrew into Galilee ²³ and settled down in a town called Nazareth. That name sounds like what the prophets said he’d be: a Nazarene [nezer, shoot; Is 11:1; 53:2]^lit.      

Mt 2:19-23