Luke 2:1-7

Contemporary English Version

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] ²These first records were made when Quirinius was governor of Syria.^[b]

³Everyone had to go to their own hometown to be listed. ⁴So 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.

⁵Mary was engaged to Joseph and traveled with him to Bethlehem. She was soon going to have a baby, ⁶and while they were there, ⁷she 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.

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Footnotes

2.1 names … listed in record books: This was done so that everyone could be made to pay taxes to the Emperor.
2.2 Quirinius was governor of Syria: It is known that Quirinius made a record of the people in a.d. 6 or 7. But the exact date of the record taking that Luke mentions is not known.
2.7 first-born: The Jewish people said that the first-born son in each of their families belonged to the Lord.
2.7 dressed him in baby clothes: The Greek text has “wrapped him in wide strips of cloth,” which was how young babies were dressed.