۞ 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 And when she heard of their secret talk, she sent for them and prepared cushioned mattresses for them and gave a knife to each one of them and said to Yusuf, “Come out before them!” When the women saw him they praised him and cut their hands, and said, “Purity is to Allah – this is no human being; this is not but an honourable angel!” 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 Joseph said, "O my Lord! I would prefer prison to what these women are inviting me to do. And if You do not avert their guile from me, I may yield to them and so become one of the ignorant." 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 appeared to them, after they had seen the proofs (of his innocence) to imprison him for a time. 35