۞ 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 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 the one you blamed me for. I did desire his person, but he preserved himself from sin. Yet in case he does not do my bidding he will be put into prison and disgraced." 32 He said: O my Lord! Prison is more dear than that unto which they urge me, and if Thou fend not off their wiles from me I shall incline unto them and become of the foolish. 33 So his Lord hearkened to him (in his prayer), and turned away from him their snare: Verily He heareth and knoweth (all things). 34 Then it seemed good to them, after they had seen the signs, that they should imprison him for a while. 35