9:15 The leaders and the highly respected people 1 are the head,
the prophets who teach lies are the tail.
59:3 For your hands are stained with blood
and your fingers with sin;
your lips speak lies,
your tongue utters malicious words.
32:7 A deceiver’s methods are evil; 2
he dreams up evil plans 3
to ruin the poor with lies,
even when the needy are in the right. 4
44:20 He feeds on ashes; 5
his deceived mind misleads him.
He cannot rescue himself,
nor does he say, ‘Is this not a false god I hold in my right hand?’ 6
57:4 At whom are you laughing?
At whom are you opening your mouth
and sticking out your tongue?
You are the children of rebels,
the offspring of liars, 7
59:13 We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord;
we turned back from following our God.
We stir up 8 oppression and rebellion;
we tell lies we concocted in our minds. 9
1 tn Heb “the elder and the one lifted up with respect to the face.” For another example of the Hebrew idiom, see 2 Kgs 5:1.
2 tn Heb “as for a deceiver, his implements [or “weapons”] are evil.”
3 tn Or “he plans evil things”; NIV “he makes up evil schemes.”
4 tn Heb “to ruin the poor with words of falsehood, even when the needy speak what is just.”
3 tn Or perhaps, “he eats on an ash heap.”
4 tn Heb “Is it not a lie in my right hand?”
4 tn Heb “Are you not children of rebellion, offspring of a lie?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “Of course you are!”
5 tn Heb “speaking.” A new sentence was started here in the translation for stylistic reasons.
6 tn Heb “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.”