Such of your women as commit indecency, call four of you to witness against them; and if they witness, then detain them in their houses until death takes them or God appoints for them a way. 15 And punish them both, the man and the woman, whoever are guilty of it (adultery); then if they repent and become pious, leave them; indeed Allah is the Most Acceptor Of Repentance, 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 But (He does not accept) the repentance of those who continue indulging in evil until death draws near and they say: "We now repent;" nor of those who die disbelieving. For them We have a grievous retribution in wait. 18 O believers, you are not allowed to take perforce the women (of dead relatives) into your heritage, or tyrannise over them in order to deprive them of what you have given them, unless they are guilty of open adultery. Live with them with tolerance and justice even if you do not care for them. For it may well be you may not like a thing, yet God may have endued it with much goodness. 19 And if ye wish to exchange one wife for another and ye have given unto one of them a sum of money (however great), take nothing from it. Would ye take it by the way of calumny and open wrong? 20 How can ye take it (back) after one of you hath gone in unto the other, and they have taken a strong pledge from you? 21 And marry not those women whom your fathers married, except what hath already happened (of that nature) in the past. Lo! it was ever lewdness and abomination, and an evil way. 22