The main objective of this paper is to study the boundedness, the periodicity, the convergence and the global stability of the positive solutions of the difference equation $$x_{n+1}=\frac{A+\alpha_0x_n+\alpha_1x_{n-\sigma}}{B+\beta_0x_n+\beta_1x_{n-\tau}}, \ \ n=0,1,2,\dots$$ where the coefficients $A, B, \alpha_0, \alpha_1, \beta_0, \beta_1 \in  (0,\infty)$ and $\sigma, \tau \in N$. The initial conditions $x_{−\omega},\dots,x_{−1}, x_0$ are arbitrary positive real numbers and $\omega = \max\{\tau, \sigma\}$. Some numerical examples are presented.