۞ 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 about whom you have been blaming me! And, indeed, I did try to make him yield to me, but he was unyielding. Now, however, if he does not do as I bid him, he shall certainly be put in prison and be humiliated." 32 Joseph said: "My Lord! I prefer imprisonment to what they ask me to do. And if You do not avert from me the guile of these women, I will succumb to their attraction and lapse into ignorance." 33 His Lord answered him and He turned their guile away from him. Indeed, He is the Hearer, the Knower. 34 Then after having seeing all the signs, they all decided that he should be imprisoned for some time. 35