those who came with the slander were a number of you. Do not regard it evil for you, rather it is good for you. Every person of them shall have the sin that he has earned charged to him. As for he who took upon himself the greater part there is a mightier punishment. 11 Wherefore, when ye heard it, did not the believing men and believing women imagine best of their own people and say: this is a calumny manifest! 12 Why did they not produce four witnesses? If they could not produce any witnesses, they were indeed liars in the sight of God! 13 And were it not for God's favour upon you, [O men,] and His grace in this world and in the life to come, awesome suffering would indeed have afflicted you in result of all [the calumny] in which you indulge 14 You carried with your tongues and uttered with your mouths what you did not know. You have thought it a trifle, but before Allah it was a mighty thing. 15 And why did ye not, when ye heard it, say? - "It is not right of us to speak of this: Glory to Allah! this is a most serious slander!" 16 Allah exhorts you never again to repeat the like, if you are believers. 17 Allah makes His Revelations clear to you, and He is All-Knowing, All-Wise. 18 Verily those who love that indecency should be propagated regarding those who believe, for them shall be a torment afflictive in the world and the Hereafter. And Allah knoweth, and ye know not. 19 If it was not for the bounty of Allah to you and His Mercy, and Allah is the Gentle, the Most Merciful. 20