THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST

Joseph got up from his dream and while it was still night he and Mary left Bethlehem.

When Herod learned that the wise men weren't going to return and tell him where he could find the Child who was born to be King, he grew very angry. He sent soldiers to Bethlehem with the command that they were to kill all the boy babies two years old and under. Just as God had warned, Herod was trying to kill the Christ Child. He didn't know that Jesus had been taken into Egypt. The mothers of the slain babies cried out to God, who heard and was sad at the terrible thing Herod had done. But God is stronger than death, and some day, in His wonderful Kingdom, those babies and their mothers will be together once more.

A few years later Herod died. The angel of the Lord came to Joseph in a dream and told him, "You may take the young Child back to your own land, for the man who wanted to kill Him is himself dead."

But when Joseph learned that Archelaus, Herod's son, ruled in his father's place, he was afraid. For Archelaus was wicked and cruel, as his father had been. So instead of going to Judea, Joseph took his family to Nazareth. Nazareth was in Galilee, which was ruled by Antipas, another son of king Herod. He wasn't a good man, but he was not as cruel and violent as his wicked father Herod had been.

So Joseph and his wife Mary lived in Nazareth. Joseph worked as a carpenter, and Mary kept house for her husband, Jesus, and the other children, who were later born to them.