۞ Women in the town began to gossip, "The nobleman's wife is trying to seduce her slave! Love for him consumes her heart! Indeed! We see her in manifest error." 30 Then, when she heard of their cunning talk, she sent unto them a messenger, and got ready for them a cushioned couch, and gave a knife to each of them. And she said: come forth to them. Then when they saw him, they were astonished at him, and they made a cut in their hands, and said: how perfect is God! no man is he: he is naught but an angel noble. 31 Said she: "This, then, is he about whom you have been blaming me! And indeed, I did try to make him yield himself unto me, but he remained chaste. Now, however, if he does not do what I bid him, he shall most certainly be imprisoned, and shall most certainly find himself among the despised! 32 He said: my Lord: prison is dearer to me than that to which these women call me; and if Thou avertest not their guile from me I should incline toward them and become of the Ignorant. 33 His Lord heard his prayer, and averted the women's wiles from him. He verily hears and knows everything. 34 Thereafter it occurred to them, even after they had seen the signs, to imprison him for a season. 35