Shedim

They sacrificed to demons [(shedim)], which have no power, deities they did not know, new things that only recently came, which your forefathers did not fear.

Shedim (Hebrew: שֵׁדִים, romanized: šēḏim; singular: שֵׁד šēḏ)[3] are spirits or demons in the Tanakh and Jewish mythology.

Shedim do not, however, correspond exactly to the modern conception of demons as evil entities as originated in Christianity.

[7][8] Although the word is traditionally derived from the root ŠWD (Hebrew: שוד shuḏ) that conveys the meaning of "acting with violence" or "laying waste,"[9] it was possibly a loanword from Akkadian, in which the word shedu referred to a spirit that could be either protective or malevolent.

Later, in Judeo-Islamic culture, shedim became the Hebrew word for the jinn, conveying the morally ambivalent attitude of these beings.

[14] A second view is that they are the offspring of Lilith,[15] from her union with Adam or other men, while a third says that God created them on the sixth day, starting to fashion their bodies but failing to complete the work because he was obliged to rest on the Sabbath.

[18] Yet a fourth conception was that the shedim had their origins among the builders of the Tower of Babel - these being divided by their motivations into three groups, of which the third and worst comprised those who sought actively to wage war against God and were punished for their sacrilegious hubris by transformation into the shedim.

Hurwitz's work, citing archaeological finds and the existing rite of 'pidjon ha’ben,' supports the notion of such sacrifices, especially in the archaic period.

The 12th century mystic Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg wrote in his will and testament that one should not seal up windows completely because it traps shedim in the house.

[23] Conjuring shedim is not necessarily forbidden, depending on whether the theologian discussing the topic views such summoning to constitute sorcery.

[24] In the Zohar:[25] The Shekhinah hid Esther from Ahasuerus and gave him a Shedah [a she-devil][26] instead while she returned to Mordechai's arms.