Another good expression with чёрт: Как чёрт (от) ладана. ("like an evil spirit from holy incense") -- it's similar to "avoid like the plague" in English.

The masculine noun ладан specifically means "frankincense" (i.e., the dried resin of trees in the genus Boswellia). But in this context you could also translate it a little more loosely as the "holy incense" used in Orthodox and Catholic churches. The preposition от may or may not be necessary, depending on the verb construction in the main sentence. For example:

Он боится труда, как чёрт ладана. He fears work like the devil [fears] the holy incense. (He avoids work like the plague.)
Наша собака убегает от ванну, как чёрт от ладана. Our dog runs away from a bath, like an evil spirit [runs] from frankincense. (Our dog avoids baths like the plague.)


The verb бояться (to fear) takes a genitive object without a preposition -- thus, for parallelism, ладан is in the genitive singular without от in the first sentence.

P.S. I'm not sure what the custom is for the Russian Orthodox church, but the "holy incense" used in Roman Catholic churches is traditionally a mixture of ладан (frankincense) and мирра (myrrh), and not ладан alone. And incidentally, the special incense burner used in churches is called either a "censer" (note the -er spelling!) or a "thurible" in English (according to Wikipedia, the Russian name is кадило).

P.P.S. The noun "plague" is чума -- "the bubonic plague" = бубонная чума.