1While my father Joseph remained a widower, my mother Mary lived in the temple, serving God in all holiness.
2She had already completed twelve years. She spent her first three years in her parents' house.
3The remaining nine years she lived in the temple of the Lord.
4The priests said: 'Let us find a good man for her marriage.'
5'Let it not be through our negligence that the period of her purification comes upon her in the temple.'
6They summoned the tribes of Judah and chose twelve men.
7The lot fell upon the good old man Joseph, my father according to the flesh.