He struggled to make sense of the words his betrothed had spoken. An angel . . . she was with child . . . Son of the Most High . . . . He was acutely aware that the child wasn’t his, but he couldn’t accept that her story was anything more than just that—a fable concocted to conceal a guilty secret. No, he must break off the betrothal—quietly, though, so as to protect this girl he so desperately wanted to believe.

Then the angel came to him.

The decision still didn’t come easily—he wrestled long with doubts and questions. I will marry her, he finally told himself. If my dream was only a dream, then yes, it is true she has betrayed and deceived me. But she needs a husband, and a father for her child. People will count the months from our marriage till the child’s birth and think I took advantage of her. I will bear her shame for her; they will blame me.

But if the dream was true . . . Yosef could not even imagine what that might mean.