۞ In the city the women gossiped: "The minister's wife longs after her page. He has captured her heart. We think she is in clear error." 30 When she heard their slanderings, she sent for them and prepared a banquet, and gave each of them a knife (for paring fruit), and called (to Joseph): "Come out before them." When they saw him, the women were so wonderstruck they cut their hands, and exclaimed: "O Lord preserve us! He is no mortal but an honourable angel." 31 She said, “This is he on whose account you used to insult me; and indeed I tried to entice him, so he safeguarded himself; and indeed if he does not do what I tell him to, he will surely be imprisoned, and will surely be humiliated.” 32 He said, "My Lord, prison is more to my liking than that to which they invite me. And if You do not avert from me their plan, I might incline toward them and [thus] be of the ignorant." 33 So his Lord heard his prayer and repelled the women’s deceit away from him; indeed He only is the All Hearing, the All Knowing. 34 And yet in spite of having seen these clear proofs they found it proper to incarcerate him for a time. 35