Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea during the reign of King Herod. Some time later, astrologers from the east arrived in Jerusalem.[1][2] 2 “Where is the one born king of the Jews?” they asked. “We saw his star rise in the east and have come to bow down to him.”
3 When King Herod heard this, he was shaken — and all Jerusalem with him. 4 He called together all the chief priests and scribes of the people and demanded to know where the Anointed One was to be born.[3]
5 “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him. “This is what the prophet wrote:
6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you will come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
7 Then Herod secretly summoned the astrologers and pressed them for the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem with these instructions: “Go and search carefully for the child. When you find him, report back to me so that I too may come and bow down to him.”
9 After hearing the king, they went on their way. And look — the star they had seen rising in the east moved ahead of them until it stopped directly over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw the star, they were flooded with an overwhelming joy.
11 They entered the house and saw the child with Mary his mother. They fell down and bowed to him. Then they opened their treasure chests and presented him with gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.[4] 12 And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their own country by a different route.
13 After they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you otherwise, because Herod is going to hunt for the child to kill him.”
14 So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and left for Egypt while it was still night. 15 He stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”
16 When Herod realized the astrologers had outwitted him, he flew into a rage. He gave orders to kill every male child in Bethlehem and all its surrounding region — two years old and under, based on the time he had carefully learned from the astrologers.[5] 17 Then what was spoken through the prophet Jeremiah came true:
18 “A voice was heard in Ramah — wailing and bitter grief. Rachel crying for her children, and she refused to be comforted, because they are gone.”
19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. 20 “Get up,” the angel said. “Take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel. Those who wanted the child dead are dead themselves.”
21 So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and entered the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Warned in a dream, he withdrew to the region of Galilee[6] 23 and settled in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what was spoken through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”[7]
Notes
Note 1. The Greek word is μάγοι (magoi) — not “kings,” and not three of them. They were a priestly caste from Persia and Parthia, associated with Zoroastrian religion and known for reading the stars and interpreting dreams. “Astrologers” keeps what they actually did. ↩
Note 2. Herod the Great is generally reckoned to have died in 4 B.C., a date tied to a lunar eclipse the historian Josephus mentions shortly before his death. If Jesus was born in Herod’s final years, that places the birth around 5 or 4 B.C. — meaning our calendar, fixed centuries later, is likely off by a few years. ↩
Note 3. Scribes were not copyists. The Greek grammateus — literally a “man of letters” — meant a professional expert in the written Law: the scholars who could read, argue, and decide what the Torah required. The Gospels keep them distinct from the “legal experts” (nomikoi) and the one “teacher of the law” (nomodidaskalos) they also name. ↩
Note 4. Frankincense and myrrh were costly aromatic tree resins, traded across the ancient world and prized for perfume, incense, medicine, and religious ritual as well as for anointing and burial. ↩
Note 5. Bethlehem was a small village, so the number of children involved would have been small. No ancient source gives a figure, and the much larger numbers in later Christian tradition have no basis in the text. ↩
Note 6. Archelaus, one of Herod the Great’s sons, inherited Judea and quickly earned a reputation for brutality; Rome deposed him for his unpopularity around A.D. 6. ↩
Note 7. No single Old Testament verse says this, and Matthew cites “the prophets” in the plural rather than naming one. Many read it as a play on words: the Hebrew netser, meaning “branch” — a term Isaiah uses for a coming ruler from David’s line — sounds like the name Nazareth. ↩