If any of your women is guilty of unnatural offence, bring four of your witnesses to give evidence; if they testify against them, retain them in the houses until death overtakes them or God provides some other way for them. 15 If two men among you are guilty of lewdness, punish them both. If they repent and amend, Leave them alone; for Allah is Oft-returning, Most Merciful. 16 But God undertakes to accept repentance only from those who do evil out of ignorance and those who repent soon after. God turns towards such people with mercy; He is all knowing and all wise. 17 whereas repentance shall not be accepted from those who do evil deeds until their dying hour and then say: "Behold, I now repent"; nor from those who die as deniers of the truth: it is these for whom We have readied grievous suffering. 18 O you who believe! it is not lawful for you that you should take women as heritage against (their) will, and do not straiten them in order that you may take part of what you have given them, unless they are guilty of manifest indecency, and treat them kindly; then if you hate them, it may be that you dislike a thing while Allah has placed abundant good in it. 19 If you want to divorce a woman so that you can marry another, do not take back the dowry which you had paid even if what you paid was a large amount of gold. To do this is a slanderous act and a manifest sin. 20 How can you take it when you have been intimate with one another, and she has taken a solemn pledge from you? 21 And do not marry the women who were wedded to your fathers (and grand fathers), except what has already passed; that is indeed an act of shame and great wrong; and an evil way. 22