Forbidden to you are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your paternal aunts and maternal aunts, your brother's daughters, your sister's daughters, your mothers who have given suck to you, your suckling sisters, your wives mothers, and your stepdaughters who are in your care from your wives with whom you have lain, but if you have never lain with them it is no fault in you. (Also forbidden to you) are the wives of your sons who are of your loins, and to take to you two sisters together unless it is a thing of the past. Allah is the Forgiver and the Most Merciful. 23 ۞ And also forbidden are the wedded among women, save those whom your right hands own; Allah's rescript for you. And allowed unto you is whatsoever is beyond that, so that ye may seek them with your substances as properly wedded men, not as fornicators. Then whomsoever of them ye have enjoyed, give them their dowers stipulated. And there will be no blame on you in regard to aught on which ye mutually agree after the stipulation; verily Allah is Knowing, Wise. 24 Any one of you who has not the affluence to be able to marry believing freewomen in wedlock, let him take believing handmaids that your right hands own; God knows very well your faith; the one of you is as the other. So marry them, with their people's leave, and give them their wages honourably as women in wedlock, not as in licence or taking lovers. But when they are in wedlock, if they commit indecency, they shall be liable to half the chastisement of freewomen. That provision is for those of you who fear fornication; yet it is better for you to be patient. God is All-forgiving, All-compassionate. 25