the enemy power would no longer interfere with the carrying out of true worship by his people in their land, YHWH declared through his prophet: "No more will any worthless person pass again through you. In his entirety he will certainly be cut off." Second Temple period The term belial appears frequently in Jewish texts of the Second Temple period (texts classified by Christians as the Old Testament pseudepigrapha and apocrypha). Also a large number of references to Belial are evidenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumran from 1948. Dead Sea Scrolls In The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, one of the Dead Sea scrolls, Belial is the leader of the Sons of Darkness: You made Belial for the pit, angel of enmity; in darkness is his domain, his counsel is to bring about wickedness and guilt. All the spirits of his lot are angels of destruction, they walk in the laws of darkness; towards it goes their only desire. In the Rules of the Community, God is depicted as saying, "I shall not comfort the oppressed until their path is perfect. I shall not retain Belial within my heart." Belial controls scores of demons, which are specifically allotted to him by God for the purpose of performing evil. Belial, despite his malevolent disposition, is considered an angel. Belial's presence is found throughout the War Scrolls and is established as the force occupying the opposite end of the spectrum of God. In Col. I, verse 1, the first line of the document, it is stated that "the first attack of the Sons of Light shall be undertaken against the forces of the Sons of Darkness, the army of Belial." This dichotomy sheds light on the negative connotations that Belial held at the time. The War Scroll and the Thanksgiving hymns both delve into the idea that Belial is accursed by God and his people, and shows how the existence of Belial in this world can be attributed to the mysteries of God since we can not know why he permits the dealings of Belial to persist. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, Belial is further contrasted with God. These are the Angel of Light and the Angel of Darkness. The Manual of Discipline identifies the Angel of Light as God himself. The Angel of Darkness is identified in the same scroll as Belial.