Book of Hosea Chapter 4 Vs. 6

 The Lord Accuses Israel

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Hos. 4:6

My people are... The cause of man’s problem is “lack of knowledge.” It does not stem from a shortage of information, but rather from rejection of information.

Lack of knowledge... Knowledge of God and His ways.

thou shall be... Having rejected the Lord’s instruction, Israel could no longer serve as His priest to the nations (Exo. 19:6; Jas. 3:1).

This is almost like saying; they did not study the Word of God and hide it away in their hearts. When God says "my people", he is speaking of each individual in the nation of Israel. To reject the knowledge of the Word of God is to reject God. We can see from the following Scriptures that God speaks of all of His followers as priests.

1 Pet. 2:5 "Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

1 Pet. 2:9-10 "But ye [are] a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light:" "Which in time past [were] not a people, but [are] now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy."

Those who do not remember God will be forgotten of God, as well.

The priests were eager to “eat up the sin” of the people. They did this by urging the people to offer hypocritical, ineffective sacrifices for sins (6:6; 8:11-13). The more the people sinned, the more the priest ate and sold the sacrificial meat to make money.

Like people, like priest, The people enjoyed sin in excess while the priests, who should have been faithful, encouraged it (Mal. 2:1-9; 2Tim. 4:3-4).

The Lord held these leaders responsible for the people’s lack of knowledge (cf. Hos. 4:1). The priests in particular had ignored their duty to communicate the Law of… God to the nation (cf. Deut. 31:9-13; 33:8-10; Mal. 2:7). So they would be severely but justly punished. Because of their part in the people’s moral ruin mothers would be destroyed. This judgment, though unusual, appears elsewhere (cf. Jer. 22:26). In this way the source of the priestly line would be eliminated. As punishment for their rejection of knowledge, the priests themselves would be removed from their office by the Lord. Also because the priests ignored the Law, the Lord said He would ignore their children, apparently meaning they would not inherit their fathers’ office (cf. 1Sam. 2:27-35). In this way the future of the priestly line would be cut off.

The repetition of the verb in each cycle of the announcement of judgment (destroy… destroyed.… rejected… reject… ignored… ignore) emphasizes that each punishment fits each crime perfectly.