The Birth of Jesus

(Matthew 1.18-25)

2 About that time Emperor Augustus gave orders for the names of all the people to be listed in record books.^{[a] 2} These first records were made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.^[b]

³ Everyone had to go to their own hometown to be listed. ⁴ So Joseph had to leave Nazareth in Galilee and go to Bethlehem in Judea. Long ago Bethlehem had been King David's hometown, and Joseph went there because he was from David's family.

⁵ Mary was engaged to Joseph and traveled with him to Bethlehem. She was soon going to have a baby, ⁶ and while they were there, ⁷ she gave birth to her first-born^[c] son. She dressed him in baby clothes^[d] and laid him on a bed of hay, because there was no room for them in the inn.

¹⁵ After the angels had left and gone back to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, “Let's go to Bethlehem and see what the Lord has told us about.” ¹⁶ They hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and they saw the baby lying on a bed of hay.

¹⁷ When the shepherds saw Jesus, they told his parents what the angel had said about him. ¹⁸ Everyone listened and was surprised.

²⁰ As the shepherds returned to their sheep, they were praising God and saying wonderful things about him. Everything they had seen and heard was just as the angel had said.