The narrative falls into three movements. In the first, the wealthy Joachim is turned away when he brings his offering, because he has fathered no child in Israel, and withdraws to the wilderness to fast for forty days. His wife Anna mourns in her garden, sees a sparrow's nest in a laurel and laments that even the birds are fruitful; an angel promises her a child, and she vows to give it to God. Mary is born, and at three years old is brought to the Temple, where she dances on the step and is fed by an angel's hand.
In the second, the priests decide at Mary's twelfth year that she cannot remain in the sanctuary. The widowers of Israel are summoned with their rods, a dove comes out of Joseph's rod and settles on his head, and he is given charge of her. He objects that he is an old man with sons and will be mocked. Mary is assigned the purple and scarlet thread for the Temple veil, and it is while spinning that she hears the annunciation, first at the well and then in the house. Joseph returns to find her pregnant, and both are put through the ordeal of the bitter water before the priests, which they pass.
The third movement is the nativity. On the road to Bethlehem Joseph settles Mary in a cave, and goes to find a midwife. What follows is the strangest passage in the book: the whole world halts. Birds hang motionless in the air, workmen sit with their hands raised to the dish, sheep stand still mid-step, and then everything resumes. The birth itself is veiled by a cloud of light. A midwife testifies to what she has seen; a second woman, Salome, refuses to believe without physical proof, tests Mary, and her hand withers until she touches the child. The book closes with the magi, Herod's massacre, Elizabeth and the infant John hidden by a mountain that opens for them, and the murder of Zechariah in the Temple.