AND CALL to mind, through this divine writ, Mary. Lo! She withdrew from her family to an eastern place 16 and she took a veil apart from them; then We sent unto her Our Spirit that presented himself to her a man without fault. 17 She said: Surely I fly for refuge from you to the Beneficent Allah, if you are one guarding (against evil). 18 He said, "I am the Messengers of your Lord. I have come to give you a purified son". 19 She said: When shall I have a boy and no mortal has yet touched me, nor have I been unchaste? 20 He said: "Thus will it be. Your Lord said: 'It is easy for Me,' and that: 'We shall make him a sign for men and a blessing from Us.' This is a thing already decreed." 21 ۞ So she conceived him, and she withdrew with him to a far place (i.e. Bethlehem valley about 4-6 miles from Jerusalem). 22 And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree. She said, "Oh, I wish I had died before this and was in oblivion, forgotten." 23 But a voice called out to her from below, "Do not despair. Your Lord has provided a brook that runs at your feet, 24 If you shake the trunk of the palm tree, it will provide you with fresh ripe dates. 25 So eat and drink thou, and cool thine eyes; and if thou beholdest the human beings anyone, say: verily I have vowed to the Compassionate a fast, so I shall not speak today to any human being. 26 She took him to her people and they said, "Mary, this is indeed an strange thing. 27 Sister of Aaron, thy father was not a wicked man, nor was thy mother a woman unchaste.' 28 So she pointed to him. They said, "How can we speak to one who is in the cradle a child?" 29 [But] he said: "Behold, I am a servant of God. He has vouchsafed unto me revelation and made me a prophet, 30 And He hath made me blest wheresoever I may be, and enjoined on me the prayer and the poor-rate as long as I am alive. 31 He has made me dutiful toward my mother, and He has not made me arrogant or wicked. 32 And peace is on me the day I was born and the day I will die and the day I am raised alive." 33 SUCH WAS, in the words of truth, Jesus the son of Mary, about whose nature they so deeply disagree. 34 God is too Exalted to have a son. When He decides to bring some thing into existence He needs only command it to exist and it comes into existence. 35 And verily Allah is my Lord and your Lord; so worship Him; this is a way straight. 36 The sects among them differ: but woe unto the disbelievers from the meeting of an awful Day. 37 See and hear them on the Day they come unto Us! yet the evil-doers are today in error manifest. 38 Warn them of [the coming of] the Day of Remorse, when everything will have been decided, while they are heedless and do not believe. 39 Lo! We, only We, inherit the earth and all who are thereon, and unto Us they are returned. 40