This is an attack on hypocrisy, on those who cover up their evil-doing by quoting passages from the Bible. The proverb comes from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice:
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul, producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
a Goodly apple, rotten at the heart:
Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
The following, from Richard III, also applies:
But then I sign; and with a piece of Scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends, stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
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