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 when two of you commit indecency, punish them both; but if they repent and make amends, then suffer them to be; God turns, and is All-compassionate. 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 whereas repentance shall not be accepted from those who do evil deeds until their dying hour and then say: "Behold, I now repent"; nor from those who die as deniers of the truth: it is these for whom We have readied grievous suffering. 18 O ye who believe! Ye are forbidden to inherit women against their will. Nor should ye treat them with harshness, that ye may Take away part of the dower ye have given them,-except where they have been guilty of open lewdness; on the contrary live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If ye take a dislike to them it may be that ye dislike a thing, and Allah brings about through it a great deal of good. 19 And if you wish to change one wife for another and you have given her heaps of treasure, do not take back anything from it; will you take it back by slander and open sin? 20 And how could ye take it when ye have gone in unto each other, and they have Taken from you a solemn covenant? 21 Do not marry the women whom your fathers married, although what is past is past. This indeed was a shameful deed, a hateful thing, and an evil way. 22