Desires and pleasures are spoken of as if they were masters over people and had made those people into slaves by lying to them. This can be translated in active form. Alternate translation: "Various desires and pleasures had lied to us and so led us astray" or "We had allowed ourselves to believe the lie that various desires and pleasures could make us happy, and then we were unable to control our feelings or stop doing things we thought would give us pleasure" (See: [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-personification]] and [[rc://en/ta/man/translate/figs-activepassive]])