If any of your women commit indecency, call in four witnesses from among yourselves against them, if they testify, confine them to their houses till death overtakes them or till Allah makes for them a way. 15 And as for the two of you who are guilty thereof, punish them both. And if they repent and improve, then let them be. Lo! Allah is ever relenting, 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 whereas repentance shall not be accepted from those who do evil deeds until their dying hour and then say: "Behold, I now repent"; nor from those who die as deniers of the truth: it is these for whom We have readied grievous suffering. 18 O you who believe! it is not lawful for you that you should take women as heritage against (their) will, and do not straiten them in order that you may take part of what you have given them, unless they are guilty of manifest indecency, and treat them kindly; then if you hate them, it may be that you dislike a thing while Allah has placed abundant good in it. 19 But if you intend to replace a wife by another and you have given one of them a Cantar (of gold i.e. a great amount) as Mahr, take not the least bit of it back; would you take it wrongfully without a right and (with) a manifest sin? 20 And how could you take it away after you have given yourselves to one another, and she has received a most solemn pledge from you? 21 And marry not women whom your fathers married,- except what is past: It was shameful and odious,- an abominable custom indeed. 22