Here we come to the heart of God’s reproach. God’s great complaint sounds here: my people are going to perish. Note that “my”; they are still his people! That makes the downfall of the people all the more painful for the Lord God. This downfall probably refers to the exile that will soon take place. Ultimately, the root cause of this is the lack of knowledge. The substantive side of the relationship with God has been neglected. The priests, the leaders, are mainly to be blamed for that. The knowledge of the law and the great deeds of the Lord was largely gone.
6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.