The leaders and the highly respected people are the head, the prophets who teach lies are the tail.

For your hands are stained with blood and your fingers with sin; your lips speak lies, your tongue utters malicious words.

A deceiver’s methods are evil; he dreams up evil plans to ruin the poor with lies, even when the needy are in the right.

He feeds on ashes; 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?’

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,

We have rebelled and tried to deceive the Lord; we turned back from following our God. We stir up oppression and rebellion; we tell lies we concocted in our minds.

For you say, “We have made a treaty with death, with Sheol we have made an agreement. When the overwhelming judgment sweeps by it will not reach us. For we have made a lie our refuge, we have hidden ourselves in a deceitful word.”