JK Rowling has rebuked evangelical pastor Robert Jeffress for saying God has given Donald Trump the authority to drop nuclear bombs on North Korea.

Entering into the debate, the Harry Potter author tweeted a William Shakespeare quote from The Merchant of Venice to rebuff the hardline conservative pastor.

She tweeted: 'The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness, Is like a villain with a smiling cheek.'

Retweeted more than five thousand times just three hours after publishing, it joins the heavy criticism aimed at Jeffress after the evangelical adviser to the President told Fox News: 'The Bible gives President Trump the moral authority to use whatever force necessary, including assassination or even war, to take out an evildoer like Kim Jong-un. I think most Christians understand that."

In a dig at Barack Obama's adminstration, Jeffress added to the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN): 'I'm heartened to see that our President – contrary to what we've seen with past administrations who have taken, at best, a sheepish stance toward dictators and oppressors – will not tolerate any threat against the American people. When President Trump draws a red line, he will not erase it, move it, or back away from it. Thank God for a President who is serious about protecting our country.'

The pastor of the 12,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, is one of the evangelical leaders who prayed for Trump and was a member of his advisory committee during the 2016 presidential election.

It comes after JK Rowling was forced to apologise for a previous attack on Trump where she accused of him of refusing to shake hands with a disabled boy after initial press footage seemed to indicate he had done so.

JK Rowling had written: 'Trump imitated a disabled reporter. Now he pretends not to see a child in a wheelchair, as though frightened he might catch his condition.

'This monster of narcissism values only himself and his pale reflections. The disabled, minorities, transgender people, the poor, women (unless related to him by ties of blood, and therefore his creations) are treated with contempt, because they do not resemble Trump.'

She later apologised to the boy's mother when footage emerged proving Trump had indeed shaken the boys hand and spoken with him.

She wrote to his mother: 'Re: my tweets about the small boy in a wheelchair whose proffered hand the president appeared to ignore in press footage.

'Multiple sources have informed me that that was not a full or accurate representation of their interaction.

'I very clearly projected my own sensitivities around the issue of disabled people being overlooked or ignored onto the images I saw and if that caused any distress to that boy or his family, I apologise unreservedly.'