Her Lord accepted the child, that is, He received Mary from her mother, with gracious acceptance, and made her grow excellently, He made her grow up with excellent character. She would grow in a day by as much as a new-born grew during a year. Her mother took her to the priests, the keepers of the Holy House [of Jerusalem] and said: ‘This here before you is the dedication [I offered]’. They competed for [guardianship of] her, because she was the daughter of their religious leader, at which point Zachariah said, ‘I am most worthy of her, for, her maternal aunt lives with me’. The others said, ‘No, [not until] we have cast lots’. Thus, all twenty nine of them departed to the River Jordan, where they cast their quills, agreeing that the one whose quill remained fast and floated to the surface of the water would be most worthy of [being guardian over] her. Zachariah’s quill remained fast [and surfaced]. He took [charge of] her and built for her a gallery-room with a ladder in the temple, and none apart from him went up to her. He used to bring her food, drink and oil, and would find her with summer fruits in winter, and winter fruits in summer, just as God says, and Zachariah took charge of her, he took her to him (a variant reading [of kafalahā, ‘he took charge of her’] is kaffalahā, ‘He [God] gave Zachariah charge of her’, with Zakariyyā’, or Zakariyyā, in the accusative and ‘God’ as the subject of the verb). Whenever Zachariah went into the sanctuary, that is, the room, the most noble seat [in the temple], where she was, he found her with provisions. ‘O Mary,’ he said, ‘Whence comes this to you?’ She, still very young, said, ‘From God, He sends it to me from Paradise,’ ‘Truly God provides, abundant provision, for whomever He will without reckoning’, without consequence.
