Verily, numerous among you are those who would falsely accuse others of unchastity: [but, O you who are thus wronged,] deem it not a bad thing for you: nay, it is good for you! [As for the slanderers,] unto every one of them [will be accounted] all that he has earned by [thus] sinning; and awesome suffering awaits any of them who takes it upon himself to enhance this [sin]! 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 Wherefore did they not bring four witnesses thereof! Then when they brought not the witnesses, those! with Allah they are the liars. 13 Had there not been Allah's grace upon you and His mercy in the world and the Hereafter, surely there would have touched you, for that wherein ye had rushed, torment mighty. 14 When ye were publishing it with your tongues and saying that with your mouths of which ye had no knowledge. Ye deemed it light, and it was with Allah mighty! 15 And why did you not, when you heard it, say: It does not beseem us that we should talk of it; glory be to Thee! this is a great calumny? 16 Allah warns you against returning to the likes of this [conduct], ever, if you should be believers. 17 And Allah makes the Ayat (proofs, evidences, verses, lessons, signs, revelations, etc.) plain to you, and Allah is All-Knowing, All-Wise. 18 Verily, those who like that (the crime of) illegal sexual intercourse should be propagated among those who believe, they will have a painful torment in this world and in the Hereafter. And Allah knows and you know not. 19 And were it not for God's favour upon you and His grace, and that God is compassionate, a dispenser of grace...! 20