And those of your women who commit illegal sexual intercourse, take the evidence of four witnesses from amongst you against them; and if they testify, confine them (i.e. women) to houses until death comes to them or Allah ordains for them some (other) way. 15 If two men commit a like abomination, punish them both. If they repent and mend their ways, leave them alone. God is forgiving and merciful. 16 God will only accept the repentance of those who commit evil in ignorance, if they repent immediately. God is All-knowing and All-wise. 17 Forgiveness is not for those who continue to do evil deeds until, when death comes upon one of them, he says: "Now I repent!" nor from those who die as deniers of the truth. We have prepared a painful punishment for them. 18 O believers, it is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will; neither debar them, that you may go off with part of what you have given them, except when they commit a flagrant indecency Consort with them honourably; or if you are averse to them, it is possible you may be averse to a thing, and God set in it much good. 19 And if you decide to dispense with a wife in order to take another, do not take away anything of what you might have given the first one, even if you had given her a heap of gold. Would you take it back by slandering her and committing a manifest wrong? 20 And how can ye take it back when one of you hath gone in unto the other, and they have obtained from you a rigid bond! 21 And do not marry women that your fathers married, unless it be a thing of the past; surely that is indecent and hateful; an evil way. 22