Luke 2:35-45

³⁵In that way they will show everyone what they really think. And Mary, later you will be real sad. It will hurt, like somebody is stabbing you with a big knife.”

³⁶While Joseph and Mary were talking to Simeon, a very old woman called Anna came along and saw Jesus, and she thanked God for him. She called out to all the people close by and told them about Jesus, that he was the one they were waiting for, and she said that God sent him to help the Jerusalem people. Anna’s father was Phanuel, and he belonged to the tribe called Asher. She was 84 years old. A long time before this Anna was a young married woman for 7 years, but then her husband died. After that she stayed in God’s ceremony house all the time, telling the people God’s words. She prayed all the time, in the day time and at night, and often she didn’t eat any food because she was praying.

³⁹After that, Joseph and Mary finished doing everything their law said they had to do. Then they went back home, to Nazareth, in Galilee country.

⁴⁰And the baby started to grow big and strong, and he got wise too. And God was good to him.

⁴¹The Jewish people have a ceremony every year called Passover. Every year Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem for that ceremony.

⁴²When Jesus was 12 years old they went to Jerusalem, like they always did, and they took Jesus with them.

⁴³After the ceremony finished they started to go north, back to their home in Nazareth. They were with a lot of other people going north, and they thought Jesus was somewhere in that mob. They thought, “He will come to our camp when we stop, at sundown.” But Jesus didn’t come to their camp at sundown. He was still back in Jerusalem. Mary and Joseph looked for him among their relatives and all that mob camping on that road,

⁴⁵but they couldn’t find him. So they went back to Jerusalem and looked for him there.