As for those of your women who are guilty of lewdness, call to witness four of you against them. And if they testify (to the truth of the allegation) then confine them to the houses until death take them or (until) Allah appoint for them a way (through new legislation). 15 And punish [thus] both of the guilty parties; but if they both repent and mend their ways, leave them alone: for, behold, God is an acceptor of repentance, a dispenser of grace. 16 Undoubtedly the repentance which Allah has by His grace made obligatory upon Himself to accept, is only the repentance of those who commit sin in folly and then soon repent – towards them does Allah incline in mercy; and Allah is the All Knowing, the Wise. 17 The forgiveness is not for those who do ill-deeds until, when death attendeth upon one of them, he saith: Lo! I repent now; nor yet for those who die while they are disbelievers. For such We have prepared a painful doom. 18 Believers, it is not lawful for you to inherit women against their will, nor should you detain them wrongfully, so that you may take away a part of what you have given them, unless they are guilty of something clearly outrageous. Live with them in accordance with what is fair and kind; if you dislike them, it may be that you dislike something which God might make a source of abundant good. 19 And if you desire to exchange a wife in place of another, and you have given to one a hundredweight, take of it nothing. What, will you take it by way of calumny and manifest sin? 20 How can you take it away after each one has enjoyed the other, and they have taken a firm covenant from you? 21 Do not marry, from now on, the ex-wives of your fathers for that custom was sinful, loathsome, and abominable. 22