Out of envy and hate, Joseph’s brother “conspired against him to kill him…and cast him into a pit” (Gen. 37:20). Then they planned to say, “Some wild beast has devoured him” (37:20). Although they did not kill him or say those actual words, after selling him to the Ishmaelites, they took his tunic, dipped it in the blood of a goat, brought it to 
their father and said, “We have found this. Do you know whether it is your son’s or not?” Jacob recognized it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him” (37:32-33). Did Joseph’s brothers tell their father a lie?
Some might argue that they didn’t actually lie. (But they did!) They set up all the circumstances so that their father would believe a lie, and then they let him believe it. That’s lying. That’s deceit! Brethren, God tells us to lay aside “all deceit” (1 Pet. 2:1), for “those who practice such things [as deceit, v. 29] are deserving of death” (Rom. 1:29-32). Deceit (i.e., lying and leading one to believe a lie) is of the Devil (Rev. 12:9), and not of God! Get away from it!