As for those of your women who are guilty of immoral conduct, call upon four from amongst you to bear witness against them. And if four men do bear witness, confine those women to their houses until either death takes them away or Allah opens some way for them. 15 If two (men) among you are guilty of such acts then punish both of them. But if they repent and reform, let them be, for God accepts repentance and is merciful. 16 God does accept repentance, but only of those who are guilty of an evil out of ignorance yet quickly repent, and God turns to them again, for God is all-knowing and all-wise. 17 Forgiveness is not for those who continue to do evil deeds until, when death comes upon one of them, he says: "Now I repent!" nor from those who die as deniers of the truth. We have prepared a painful punishment for them. 18 Believers, it is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will, nor should you detain them wrongfully, so that you may take away a part of what you have given them, unless they are guilty of something clearly outrageous. Live with them in accordance with what is fair and kind; if you dislike them, it may be that you dislike something which God might make a source of abundant good. 19 And if you decide to dispense with a wife in order to take another, do not take away anything of what you might have given the first one, even if you had given her a heap of gold. Would you take it back by slandering her and committing a manifest wrong? 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 do not marry women that your fathers married, unless it be a thing of the past; surely that is indecent and hateful; an evil way. 22