⁴⁵ Philip went to look for Nathanael and told him, “We have found the very person Moses^[a] and the prophets wrote about! His name is Jesus, the son of Joseph from Nazareth.”

¹⁸ I will raise up a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell the people everything I command him. ¹⁹ I will personally deal with anyone who will not listen to the messages the prophet proclaims on my behalf. ²⁰ But any prophet who falsely claims to speak in my name or who speaks in the name of another god must die.’

²¹ “But you may wonder, ‘How will we know whether or not a prophecy is from the Lord?’ ²² If the prophet speaks in the Lord’s name but his prediction does not happen or come true, you will know that the Lord did not give that message. That prophet has spoken without my authority and need not be feared.

²⁷ Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

⁴⁴ Then he said, “When I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

²³ So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

A Ruler from Bethlehem

²² Everyone spoke well of him and was amazed by the gracious words that came from his lips. “How can this be?” they asked. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”

⁷ Once more he asked them, “Who are you looking for?”

And again they replied, “Jesus the Nazarene.”

⁴⁵ “Yet it isn’t I who will accuse you before the Father. Moses will accuse you! Yes, Moses, in whom you put your hopes. ⁴⁶ If you really believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me.

¹⁴ All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin^[a] will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).