Matthew 1

¹⁸And through your offspring all nations of the earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.”

³regarding His Son, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh,

¹⁶The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say, “and to seeds,” meaning many, but “and to your seed,” meaning One, who is Christ.

¹⁶“I, Jesus, have sent My angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star.”

¹¹The Lord swore an oath to David, a promise He will not revoke: “One of your descendants I will place on your throne.

⁵Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and He will reign wisely as King and will administer justice and righteousness in the land.

⁸Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

¹⁷By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac on the altar. He who had received the promises was ready to offer his one and only son,

¹⁸even though God had said to him, “Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.”

²So Sarah conceived and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised.

³And Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore to him.

⁸Now these are the names of the sons of Israel (Jacob and his descendants) who went to Egypt: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.

⁹The sons of Reuben: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi.

²⁶After this, his brother came out grasping Esau’s heel; so he was named Jacob. And Isaac was sixty years old when the twins were born.

⁸Judah, your brothers shall praise you. Your hand shall be on the necks of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down to you.

⁹Judah is a young lion—my son, you return from the prey. Like a lion he crouches and lies down; like a lioness, who dares to rouse him?

²⁴About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has prostituted herself, and now she is pregnant.” “Bring her out!” Judah replied. “Let her be burned to death!”

²⁵As she was being brought out, Tamar sent a message to her father-in-law: “I am pregnant by the man to whom these items belong.” And she added, “Please examine them. Whose seal and cord and staff are these?”

²⁹But when he pulled his hand back and his brother came out, she said, “You have broken out first!” So he was named Perez.

³⁰Then his brother came out with the scarlet thread around his wrist, and he was named Zerah.

¹²The sons of Judah: Er, Onan, Shelah, Perez, and Zerah; but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan. The sons of Perez: Hezron and Hamul.

¹⁸Now these are the generations of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron,

¹⁹Hezron was the father of Ram, Ram was the father of Amminadab,

¹The descendants of Judah: Perez, Hezron, Carmi, Hur, and Shobal.

²⁰These were the descendants of Judah by their clans: The Shelanite clan from Shelah, the Perezite clan from Perez, and the Zerahite clan from Zerah.

²¹And these were the descendants of Perez: the Hezronite clan from Hezron and the Hamulite clan from Hamul.

¹⁰Ram was the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab was the father of Nahshon, a leader of the descendants of Judah.

¹¹Nahshon was the father of Salmon, and Salmon was the father of Boaz.

⁷from Judah, Nahshon son of Amminadab;

¹²On the first day Nahshon son of Amminadab from the tribe of Judah drew near with his offering.

³On the east side, toward the sunrise, the divisions of Judah are to camp under their standard: The leader of the Judahites is Nahshon son of Amminadab,

¹⁴First, the divisions of the camp of Judah set out under their standard, with Nahshon son of Amminadab in command.

¹⁹Hezron was the father of Ram, Ram was the father of Amminadab,

²⁰Amminadab was the father of Nahshon, Nahshon was the father of Salmon,

¹⁶But Ruth replied: “Do not urge me to leave you or to turn from following you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.

¹⁷Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me, and ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”

³¹By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies in peace, did not perish with those who were disobedient.

²⁵In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute justified by her actions when she welcomed the spies and sent them off on another route?

²²So Naomi returned from the land of Moab with her daughter-in-law Ruth the Moabitess. And they arrived in Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest.

²²Meanwhile, Joshua told the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the house of the prostitute and bring out the woman and all who are with her, just as you promised her.”

²³So the young spies went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother and brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel.

⁴who took Moabite women as their wives, one named Orpah and the other named Ruth. And after they had lived in Moab about ten years,

⁵For David had done what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not turned aside from anything the Lord commanded all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.

¹²Now David was the son of a man named Jesse, an Ephrathite from Bethlehem of Judah who had eight sons. And in the days of Saul, Jesse was old and well along in years.

¹These are the last words of David: “The oracle of David son of Jesse, the oracle of the man raised on high, the one anointed by the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel:

²⁴Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. So she gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. Now the Lord loved the child

²⁵and sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah because the Lord loved him.

¹Now the Lord said to Samuel, “How long are you going to mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and go. I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem, for I have selected from his sons a king for Myself.”

²⁶When Uriah’s wife heard that her husband was dead, she mourned for him.

²⁷And when the time of mourning was over, David had her brought to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord.

¹Then Abijah rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David. And his son Asa reigned in his place, and in his days the land was at peace for ten years.

²And Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God.

⁸And Abijam rested with his fathers and was buried in the City of David, and his son Asa reigned in his place.

⁹In the twentieth year of Jeroboam’s reign over Israel, Asa became king of Judah,

¹⁰Solomon’s son was Rehoboam: Abijah was his son, Asa his son, Jehoshaphat his son,

¹¹Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son,

³¹And Rehoboam rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David; his mother’s name was Naamah the Ammonite. And his son Abijam reigned in his place.

⁷Then worthless and wicked men gathered around him to resist Rehoboam son of Solomon when he was young, inexperienced, and unable to resist them.

³¹And Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David. And his son Rehoboam reigned in his place.

¹¹Joram his son, Ahaziah his son, Joash his son,

¹All the people of Judah took Uzziah, who was sixteen years old, and made him king in place of his father Amaziah.

²Uzziah was the one who rebuilt Eloth and restored it to Judah after King Amaziah rested with his fathers.

¹In the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat’s reign over Judah, Jehoram son of Ahab became king of Israel, and he reigned in Samaria twelve years.

²However, in the third year, Jehoshaphat king of Judah went down to visit the king of Israel,

³who said to his servants, “Do you not know that Ramoth-gilead is ours, but we have failed to take it from the hand of the king of Aram?”

¹And Jehoshaphat rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. And his son Jehoram reigned in his place.

¹Asa’s son Jehoshaphat reigned in his place, and he strengthened himself against Israel.

²He stationed troops in every fortified city of Judah and put garrisons in the land of Judah and in the cities of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.

³²In the second year of the reign of Pekah son of Remaliah over Israel, Jotham son of Uzziah became king of Judah.

¹Now in the days that Ahaz son of Jotham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah, Rezin king of Aram marched up to wage war against Jerusalem. He was accompanied by Pekah son of Remaliah the king of Israel, but he could not overpower the city.

²When it was reported to the house of David that Aram was in league with Ephraim, the hearts of Ahaz and his people trembled like trees in the forest shaken by the wind.

¹In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.

²And the king of Assyria sent the Rabshakeh, with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. And he stopped by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.

¹In the third year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz became king of Judah.

²He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah.

²¹So King Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death. He lived in isolation, leprous and cut off from the house of the Lord, while his son Jotham had charge of the royal palace and governed the people of the land.

¹Jotham was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. His mother’s name was Jerushah daughter of Zadok.

³³And Hezekiah rested with his fathers and was buried in the upper tombs of David’s descendants. All Judah and the people of Jerusalem paid him honor at his death. And his son Manasseh reigned in his place.

²And he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord, “O altar, O altar, this is what the Lord says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David, and upon you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and human bones will be burned upon you.’”

¹³Ahaz his son, Hezekiah his son, Manasseh his son,

¹⁴Amon his son, and Josiah his son.

²The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah,

³and through the days of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah, until the fifth month of the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah king of Judah, when the people of Jerusalem went into exile.

²¹And Hezekiah rested with his fathers, and his son Manasseh reigned in his place.

³Surely this happened to Judah at the Lord’s command, to remove them from His presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all that he had done,

⁴and also for the innocent blood he had shed. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord was unwilling to forgive.

²⁰which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon did not take when he carried Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim king of Judah into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, along with all the nobles of Judah and Jerusalem.

²⁸These are the people Nebuchadnezzar carried away: in the seventh year, 3,023 Jews;

²⁹in Nebuchadnezzar’s eighteenth year, 832 people from Jerusalem;

¹¹Then he put out Zedekiah’s eyes, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon, where he kept him in custody until his dying day.

¹²On the tenth day of the fifth month, in the nineteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign over Babylon, Nebuzaradan captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, entered Jerusalem.

³¹Jehoahaz was twenty-three years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem three months. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.

¹¹Then Nebuzaradan captain of the guard carried into exile the people who remained in the city, along with the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon and the rest of the population.

¹⁰Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and take a look; send to Kedar and consider carefully; see if there has ever been anything like this:

¹¹Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But My people have exchanged their Glory for useless idols.

¹⁷The descendants of Jeconiah the captive: Shealtiel his son,

²Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests, along with Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and his associates, began to build the altar of the God of Israel to sacrifice burnt offerings on it, as it is written in the Law of Moses the man of God.

¹⁴So the Lord stirred the spirit of Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, as well as the spirit of all the remnant of the people. And they came and began the work on the house of the Lord of Hosts, their God,

²⁷the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri,

¹⁹The sons of Pedaiah: Zerubbabel and Shimei. The children of Zerubbabel: Meshullam and Hananiah, their sister Shelomith,

²⁰and five others: Hashubah, Ohel, Berechiah, Hasadiah, and Jushab-hesed.

²“Speak to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and also to the remnant of the people. Ask them,

¹⁷So when the crowd had assembled, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?”

²³Jesus Himself was about thirty years old when He began His ministry. He was regarded as the son of Joseph, the son of Heli,

²⁵The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

³¹Behold, you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus.

³²He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David,

²²“What then should I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked. They all answered, “Crucify Him!”

⁴So Joseph also went up from Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, since he was from the house and line of David.

⁵He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to him in marriage and was expecting a child.

¹¹and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon.

¹²After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel,

¹⁴He carried into exile all Jerusalem—all the commanders and mighty men of valor, all the craftsmen and metalsmiths—ten thousand captives in all. Only the poorest people of the land remained.

⁴But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

⁵to redeem those under the law, that we might receive our adoption as sons.

²⁷to a virgin pledged in marriage to a man named Joseph, who was of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary.

²⁸The angel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.”

⁵Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You prepared for Me.

⁴Who can bring out clean from unclean? No one!

¹⁵And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁴What is man, that he should be pure, or one born of woman, that he should be righteous?

²¹she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house, and there the men of her city will stone her to death. For she has committed an outrage in Israel by being promiscuous in her father’s house. So you must purge the evil from among you.

²²If a man is found lying with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge the evil from Israel.

¹If a man marries a woman, but she becomes displeasing to him because he finds some indecency in her, he may write her a certificate of divorce, hand it to her, and send her away from his house.

²If, after leaving his house, she goes and becomes another man’s wife,

⁴and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.

⁵In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such a woman. So what do You say?”

²⁰because Herod feared John and protected him, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man. When he heard John’s words, he was greatly perplexed; yet he listened to him gladly.

²⁴About three months later, Judah was told, “Your daughter-in-law Tamar has prostituted herself, and now she is pregnant.” “Bring her out!” Judah replied. “Let her be burned to death!”

¹⁰If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must surely be put to death.

⁵Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;

⁶in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

¹⁹“I am Gabriel,” replied the angel. “I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news.

¹⁸This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged in marriage to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.

²⁸And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.

⁴So Joseph also went up from Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, since he was from the house and line of David.

¹⁹After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt.

²³From the descendants of this man, God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as He promised.

¹²Salvation exists in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

²⁹The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

⁵But you know that Christ appeared to take away sins, and in Him there is no sin.

²⁰and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through the blood of His cross.

²¹Once you were alienated from God and were hostile in your minds, engaging in evil deeds.

²¹When the eight days before His circumcision had passed, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given Him before He was conceived.

⁴⁴Jesus said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.”

¹⁵and said: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who has fulfilled with His own hand what He spoke with His mouth to my father David, saying,

²³and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was spoken through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”

¹⁸But in this way God has fulfilled what He foretold through all the prophets, saying that His Christ would suffer.

²⁴You have kept Your promise to Your servant, my father David. What You spoke with Your mouth You have fulfilled with Your hand this day.

¹In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord spoken through Jeremiah, the Lord stirred the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia to send a proclamation throughout his kingdom and to put it in writing as follows:

¹⁴Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call Him Immanuel.

⁶For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

⁷Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

¹¹The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah

¹⁴The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

²Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. For the Lord God is my strength and my song, and He also has become my salvation.”

¹⁶By common confession, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was proclaimed among the nations, was believed in throughout the world, was taken up in glory.

¹⁴You are My friends if you do what I command you.

²¹Was not our father Abraham justified by what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar?

²²You see that his faith was working with his actions, and his faith was perfected by what he did.

⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever He tells you.”

⁶Now six stone water jars had been set there for the Jewish rites of purification. Each could hold from twenty to thirty gallons.

³²They washed whenever they entered the Tent of Meeting or approached the altar, just as the Lord had commanded Moses.

¹⁶Moses did everything just as the Lord had commanded him.

²⁷and he burned fragrant incense on it, just as the Lord had commanded him.

²¹When the eight days before His circumcision had passed, He was named Jesus, the name the angel had given Him before He was conceived.

²“Consecrate to Me every firstborn male. The firstborn from every womb among the Israelites belongs to Me, both of man and beast.”

²⁹You must not hold back offerings from your granaries or vats. You are to give Me the firstborn of your sons.

²¹She will give birth to a Son, and you are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.”

⁷And she gave birth to her firstborn, a Son. She wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

²⁹For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.