My second biblical mention comes in the book of Job – which narrates the true story of how the Lord plagued, tortured, bereaved, and impoverished his most faithful disciple, directly blaming His cruelty, not on Job's sin, nor even on me, but on a wager. For a report of "all the evil that Yahveh inflicted on Job" (Job 42:11, KJV), you may read the 42-chapter epic for yourself. I find Job's history no less painful to review than the King David census disaster. When I made my bet with God that Job would lose his faith if he were not so darned lucky all the time, I had no idea what the Lord would do to the poor man, or how far He would go, just to prove me wrong (Job 1-42).

(Job: I'm sorry.)

Next comes the book of Psalms, where King David prays to God that I, Lucifer, may "stand on the right hand" of his victims (Psalms 109.6). I cannot tell, for sure, if that prayer was a good one or a bad one. Bad, probably. David had his good qualities, but he was also a fucking psychopath.

In my final Old Testament mention – 520 BCE – the prophet Zechariah reports that I appeared to him in a dream, struggling against Father Joshua. This was not the first great Joshua (15th century BCE), whom Hermann Goering so admired, but one of the Lord's high clergy in 6th-century Jerusalem. Father Joshua appeared in the prophet's dream as a sinful priest in filthy garments, with yours truly at the right hand, resisting him, until God intervened. That particular contest ended exactly as these struggles typically end in real life: an angel of the Lord drove me away; cleaned up the mess; gave Father Joshua a fresh robe to wear; and quietly transferred him to another city where the local parents knew nothing of his special fondness for children (Zech. 3:1-4).

(BTW, I see in a friend's online blog that our 265th pope, Pope Benedict – the White Beanie formerly known Joe Ratzinger – has issued a statement that Harry Potter books are bad for children ["subtle seductions," and blah, blah, blah]. Why, after two thousand years, do the White Beanies still refuse to issue a papal bull that sexual molestation by a subtle priest or so-called "reverend father" may also be bad for children?)

Well, that's it: the complete, unabridged record of Lucifer's bad behavior, as recorded in the Old Testament. Call me "Satan" or "the Devil," if you like. Compared to the Lord, I would call myself an angel of light.

– L.