When the Wise men arrived in Bethlehem to pay homage to the infant Jesus, all seemed well. But on the night they left, Joseph, Jesus' earthly father, had a dream in which an angel warned him that King Herod would be sending his soldiers to find the baby Jesus and kill him. The angel ordered Joseph to take Jesus and Mary and flee to Egypt immediately. They were to stay there until Joseph was told they could return.
Without delay Joseph woke Mary and prepared for the journey. Under cover of darkness the family of three traveled through the Negev Desert and across the Sinai, where Moses and the Israelites had wandered centuries earlier. It was a long, dusty journey from one small village to the next, but at last the family arrived safely in Egypt and settled down.
Joseph and Mary had left just in time. Exactly as the angel had warned, Herod, afraid that Jesus would grow up to take his place as king, ordered his soldiers to kill every boy under age two who had been born in Bethlehem or anywhere nearby.
Some time later Joseph had another dream, in which an angel told him that Herod was dead and that it was safe to go home. Joseph brought his family back to the Holy Land, but when he heard that Herod's son Archelaus was ruling Judea, he was afraid to return to Bethlehem. Instead, Joseph took his family north to Galilee and settled in the town of Nazareth, where he continued to work as a carpenter.
