The Escape to Egypt

Matthew 2 ¹³ After the wise men had gone, an angel from the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Hurry and take the child and his mother to Egypt! Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is looking for the child and wants to kill him.”

¹⁴ That night, Joseph got up and took his wife and the child to Egypt, ¹⁵ where they stayed until Herod died. So the Lord’s promise came true, just as the prophet had said, “I called my son out of Egypt.”

The Killing of the Children

¹⁶ When Herod found out that the wise men from the east had tricked him, he was very angry. He gave orders for his men to kill all the boys who lived in or near Bethlehem and were two years old and younger. This was based on what he had learned from the wise men.

¹⁷ So the Lord’s promise came true, just as the prophet Jeremiah had said,

¹⁸ “In Ramah a voice was heard
    crying and weeping loudly.
Rachel was mourning
    for her children,
and she refused
to be comforted,
    because they were dead.”

The Return from Egypt

¹⁹ After King Herod died, an angel from the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph while he was still in Egypt. ²⁰ The angel said, “Get up and take the child and his mother back to Israel. The people who wanted to kill him are now dead.”

²¹ Joseph got up and left with them for Israel. ²² But when he heard that Herod’s son Archelaus was now ruler of Judea, he was afraid to go there. Then in a dream he was told to go to Galilee, ²³  and they went to live there in the town of Nazareth. So the Lord’s promise came true, just as the prophet had said, “He will be called a Nazarene.”