Commemorate Mary in the Book. When she withdrew from her family to a place in the East 16 and drew a curtain, screening herself from people whereupon We sent to her Our spirit and he appeared to her as a well-shaped man. 17 Mary exclaimed: "I surely take refuge from you with the Most Compassionate Lord, if you are at all God-fearing." 18 [The angel] answered: "I am but a messenger of thy Sustainer, [who says,] 'I shall bestow upon thee the gift of a son endowed with purity.'" 19 She said: How can I have a son when no mortal hath touched me, neither have I been unchaste? 20 He said: Even so; your Lord says: It is easy to Me: and that We may make him a sign to men and a mercy from Us, and it is a matter which has been decreed. 21 ۞ When she conceived him she went away to a distant place. 22 And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree: She cried (in her anguish): "Ah! would that I had died before this! would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight!" 23 Thereupon [a voice] called out to her from beneath that [palm-tree]: "Grieve not! Thy Sustainer has provided a rivulet [running] beneath thee; 24 And shake toward thee the trunk of the palm-tree it shall drop on thee dates fresh and ripe. 25 So eat and drink and be consoled. And if thou meetest any mortal, say: Lo! I have vowed a fast unto the Beneficent, and may not speak this day to any mortal. 26 Then she brought him (the baby) to her people, carrying him. They said: "O Mary! Indeed you have brought a thing Fariya (an unheard mighty thing). 27 O sister of Aaron, your father was not a man of evil, nor was your mother unchaste." 28 She pointed to the child. They said, "How shall we talk to someone who is a child in the cradle?" 29 "I am a servant of God," he answered. "He has given me a Book and made me a prophet, 30 And He has made me blessed wherever I may be, and He has enjoined on me prayer and poor-rate so long as I live; 31 and likewise to cherish my mother; He has not made me arrogant, unprosperous. 32 Peace be upon me, the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised up alive!' 33 That is Jesus, the son of Mary - the word of truth about which they are in dispute. 34 It is not [befitting] for Allah to take a son; exalted is He! When He decrees an affair, He only says to it, "Be," and it is. 35 And [thus it was that Jesus always said]: "Verily, God is my Sustainer as well as your Sustainer; so worship [none but] Him: this [alone] is a straight way." 36 But the parties have fallen into variance among themselves, then woe to those who disbelieve for the scene of a Dreadful Day. 37 How [clearly] they will hear and see the Day they come to Us, but the wrongdoers today are in clear error. 38 And warn them of the day of intense regret, when the matter shall have been decided; and they are (now) in negligence and they do not believe. 39 We are the heirs of the earth and those living in it will all return to Us. 40