AND AS FOR those of your women who become guilty of immoral conduct, call upon four from among you who have witnessed their guilt; and if these bear witness thereto, confine the guilty women to their houses until death takes them away or God opens for them a way [through repentance]. 15 And punish [thus] both of the guilty parties; but if they both repent and mend their ways, leave them alone: for, behold, God is an acceptor of repentance, a dispenser of grace. 16 Repentance with Allah is only for those who do evil in ignorance, then turn (to Allah) soon, so these it is to whom Allah turns (mercifully), and Allah is ever Knowing, Wise. 17 Forgiveness is not for those who continue to do evil deeds until, when death comes upon one of them, he says: "Now I repent!" nor from those who die as deniers of the truth. We have prepared a painful punishment for them. 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 shall you take it, when each of you has been privily with the other, and they have taken from you a solemn compact? 21 And marry not women whom your fathers married,- except what is past: It was shameful and odious,- an abominable custom indeed. 22