Section 26

“For this reason the prophet sent by the Lord declared them miserable, saying, ‘Woe to the one who makes his neighbor drink a muddy destruction.’ Such practices and schemes overturn the road that leads to virtue.

“And the Lord himself, even when the demons spoke what was true—for they truly said, ‘You are the Son of God’—silenced them and did not allow them to speak. He did this so that they would not sow their evil together with the truth, and so that he might train us never to pay attention to them even when they appear to say what is true.

“It would be improper for us, who possess the holy Scriptures and have received freedom from the Savior, to be taught by the devil—the one who did not preserve his own rank but changed from one way of thinking to another. For this reason God forbids him even when he uses the language of Scripture: ‘But to the sinner God says, “Why do you recite my ordinances and take my covenant upon your lips?”’

“The demons do everything—babbling, confusing, pretending, and throwing things into disorder—in order to deceive the simple. They make a great racket, laugh madly, and whistle. But if no one pays attention to them, they immediately weep and lament as though they had been defeated.