'were devoid of' is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
It is used to describe something that is missing or absent. For example, "The shelves were devoid of any books."
"Too many were devoid of much character".
But we were devoid of ideas and everything.
Both men were devoid of any natural ingredients.
"We were devoid of all energy," Frank said.
An early complaint of his yachts was that they were devoid of manual labor.
We hated minorities, even though the neighborhoods many of us lived in were devoid of them.
All were devoid of any reference to the history of the house.
They were devoid of any ritualistic references to the friendship between the allies.
The streets around the convention center were devoid of people, even on a warm spring day.
She was tired of Euro-American writers discussing wildernesses as if, by definition, they were devoid of people.
"So many encounters in those years were devoid of any logic, save that of the dreamwork," she writes.
