If any of your women commit fornication, call in four male witnesses from among yourselves against them; if they testify to their guilt, confine them to the house until death releases them or until God gives them another way out. 15 And the two persons (man and woman) among you who commit illegal sexual intercourse, punish them both. And if they repent (promise Allah that they will never repeat, i.e. commit illegal sexual intercourse and other similar sins) and do righteous good deeds, leave them alone. Surely, Allah is Ever the One Who accepts repentance, (and He is) Most Merciful. 16 Repentance with Allah is only for those who do evil in ignorance, then turn (to Allah) soon, so these it is to whom Allah turns (mercifully), and Allah is ever Knowing, Wise. 17 And repentance is not for those who go on working evil until when death presenteth itself unto one of them, and he saith: verily now I repent; nor for those who die while they are infidel. These! for them We have gotten ready a torment afflictive. 18 O YOU who have attained to faith! It is not lawful for you to [try to] become heirs to your wives [by holding onto them] against their will; and neither shall you keep them under constraint with a view to taking away anything of what you may have given them, unless it be that they have become guilty, in an obvious manner, of immoral conduct. And consort with your wives in a goodly manner; for if you dislike them, it may well be that you dislike something which God might yet make a source of abundant good. 19 If you desire to replace one wife with another, do not take any part of her dower back: even if you have given her a treasure. Would you take it by slandering her and with manifest sinfulness? 20 How can you take it back when you have had intimate relations and made a solemn agreement with each other? 21 AND DO NOT marry women whom your fathers have previously married - although what is past is past: this, verily, is a shameful deed, and a hateful thing, and an evil way. 22