AND CALL to mind, through this divine writ, Mary. Lo! She withdrew from her family to an eastern place 16 We sent to her Our Spirit (Gabriel) in the resemblance of a perfect human. 17 She exclaimed: "Verily, 'I seek refuge from thee with the Most Gracious! [Approach me not] if thou art conscious of Him!" 18 He said: "I am just a message-bearer of your Lord, I have come to grant you a most pure boy." 19 She said: "How can I have a son, when no man has touched me, nor am I unchaste?" 20 He said: So (it will be). Thy Lord saith: It is easy for Me. And (it will be) that We may make of him a revelation for mankind and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained. 21 ۞ and in time she conceived him, and then she withdrew with him to a far-off place. 22 Then the birth pangs drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree and she said: "Oh, would that I had died before this and had been all forgotten." 23 But (a voice) cried to her from beneath the (palm-tree): "Grieve not! for thy Lord hath provided a rivulet beneath thee; 24 And shake the trunk of the palm-tree toward thee, thou wilt cause ripe dates to fall upon thee. 25 So eat and drink and refresh the eye. Then if you see any mortal, say: Surely I have vowed a fast to the Beneficent Allah, so I shall not speak to any man today. 26 Carrying her child, she brought him to her people. They said, "O Mary, you have indeed done something terrible! 27 O sister of Aaron! Thy father was not a wicked man nor was thy mother a harlot. 28 Then she pointed to him. They said: "How can we talk to one who is a child in the cradle?" 29 He said: "I am indeed a servant of Allah: He hath given me revelation and made me a prophet; 30 "And He hath made me blessed wheresoever I be, and hath enjoined on me Prayer and Charity as long as I live; 31 He has made me dutiful toward my mother, and He has not made me arrogant or wicked. 32 Peace be upon me on the day I was born, and on the day I die; and on the day when I shall be raised up alive' 33 This is Eisa (Jesus), the son of Maryam; a true statement, in which they doubt. 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 Indeed, Allah is my Lord and your Lord therefore worship Him. That is the Straight Path. 36 (The followers of Jesus) turned themselves into quarrelling sects. The disbelievers shall face a woeful condition on the great Day (of Judgment). 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 Surely We inherit the earth and all those who are on it, and to Us they shall be returned. 40