This passage shows the poverty of the Holy Family. Jewish readers, many of whom were parents themselves, knew the fuller quotation from Leviticus, and if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two young pigeons (12:8). The wealthy were to bring a lamb and one bird, but the poor were allowed to bring two birds instead. Two lines of new parents formed at the temple, the wealthy in fine clothes carrying a newborn and a bird, and leading a lamb, while through another entrance
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