Matthew 2:16

Mat. 2:16. "Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men." Herod's slaying all the young children: this was a just punishment of the people of Bethlehem for their treatment of the blessed Virgin and her young child, by inhumanly refusing to entertain her in their houses when her travail came upon her, thereby exposing the life of her child: and not only refusing to entertain the Virgin in travail, but suffering her afterwards to remain in the stable with her child. For this treatment of this Divine infant and His mother, God, by a terrible judgment, destroys their infants, and dreadfully afflicts their mothers. They were inhuman and cruel to the blessed Virgin and her young child, and they were justly punished with the effects of dreadful inhumanity and cruelty executed on their young children.

Mat. 3:2