How are rejected knowledge and shared accountability connected?

The Lord summons Israel to judgment because the land lacks truth, mercy and knowledge of God. Cursing, lying, killing, theft and adultery overflow; blood touches blood. The land will mourn, its inhabitants languish with beasts and birds, and the sea's fish be gathered. The people are like those contradicting the priest; the edition explains the instruction against striving or reproving as the futility of confronting their obstinacy. A fall is announced for them and the prophet, and the mother is made silent in the night. The people are silent without knowledge: rejection of knowledge brings rejection from priestly office, and forgetting God's law brings forgetting their children.

As they multiply they sin, and glory turns to shame. They eat the people's sins and lift their souls toward iniquity. Like people, like priest: their ways and devices will be repaid. Eating does not fill them, and fornication continues because they forsook the Lord's law. Fornication, wine and drunkenness take understanding away. They consult stocks and a staff; the spirit of fornication deceives them. Sacrifices and incense are offered on mountains and hills beneath oak, poplar and turpentine trees for their shade. Daughters' and spouses' infidelity follows; the Lord says he will not visit it upon them because the men themselves consort with harlots and sacrifice with the effeminate. The uncomprehending people will be beaten.

Even if Israel plays the harlot, Juda is warned not to offend, enter Galgal or Bethaven, or swear The Lord liveth. The edition identifies these as idol-worship places and explains Bethel's renaming as Bethaven, house of vanity, because of Jeroboam's calf. Israel strays like a wanton heifer and will be fed like a lamb in a spacious place. Ephraim shares with idols and is to be left alone. The separated banquet and protectors bringing shame precede the image of wind binding them in its wings and confusion over sacrifices. The chapter does not describe priestly gluttony, definite exile or a general rule that all religious correction must cease.