Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
A demonstration that the wording runs, Behold, a virgin shall carry a child in her womb, and not, Behold, a maiden, as some render it. God, then, became man, and it was the Lord in his own person who rescued us, himself furnishing the sign of the Virgin. So then the reading offered by certain people is not accurate, who venture to render the passage this way: Behold, a maiden shall carry a child in her womb, and shall bear a son—as Theodotion of Ephesus rendered it, and Aquila of Pontus, both converts from paganism to Judaism; and the Ebionites, taking their cue from these, claim he was fathered by Joseph, thereby undoing, as far as it lies within their power, so vast a plan set in motion by God, and nullifying the witness borne by the prophets that God brought to pass. Now this was foretold prior to the people's exile into Babylon, that is, before the Medes and Persians rose to power; yet it had already been rendered into Greek by the Jews themselves, well before our Lord's coming, so that no doubt could linger that the Jews, out of some wish to gratify us, had rendered it this way. And truly, had they known that we would come to exist and would draw on these scriptural testimonies, they would sooner have set fire to their own sacred writings—writings which reveal that every other nation likewise shares in life, and which show that those priding themselves on being descended from Jacob's household and called the people of Israel have been stripped of their inheritance in God's favor.