۞ And women in the city said: The ruler's wife is asking of her slave-boy an ill-deed. Indeed he has smitten her to the heart with love. We behold her in plain aberration. 30 When she heard their slanderings, she sent for them and prepared a banquet, and gave each of them a knife (for paring fruit), and called (to Joseph): "Come out before them." When they saw him, the women were so wonderstruck they cut their hands, and exclaimed: "O Lord preserve us! He is no mortal but an honourable angel." 31 She said, “This is he on whose account you used to insult me; and indeed I tried to entice him, so he safeguarded himself; and indeed if he does not do what I tell him to, he will surely be imprisoned, and will surely be humiliated.” 32 Joseph said: "My Lord! I prefer imprisonment to what they ask me to do. And if You do not avert from me the guile of these women, I will succumb to their attraction and lapse into ignorance." 33 Thereupon his Lord accepted his prayer and turned away their guile from him; surely He is the Hearing, the Knowing. 34 Thereafter it occurred to them, even after they had seen the signs, to imprison him for a season. 35