۞ Women in the town began to gossip, "The nobleman's wife is trying to seduce her slave! Love for him consumes her heart! Indeed! We see her in manifest error." 30 So when she heard of their accusation, she sent for them and prepared a banquet for them; she gave each one of them a knife (to cut the foodstuff with), and she said [(to Yusuf (Joseph)]: "Come out before them." Then, when they saw him, they exalted him (at his beauty) and (in their astonishment) cut their hands. They said: "How perfect is Allah (or Allah forbid)! No man is this! This is none other than a noble angel!" 31 She said: "This is the one you blamed me for. I did desire his person, but he preserved himself from sin. Yet in case he does not do my bidding he will be put into prison and disgraced." 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 So his Lord hearkened to him (in his prayer), and turned away from him their snare: Verily He heareth and knoweth (all things). 34 Then after having seeing all the signs, they all decided that he should be imprisoned for some time. 35