Hosea 4:14

‘I will not punish your daughters when they play the harlot, nor your brides when they commit adultery, for the men themselves go apart with harlots, and they sacrifice with the prostitutes, and the people who do not understand will be overthrown.'

YHWH then pointed out that He would not punish the young women for their behaviour because they were only following the example of their elders. For their men-folk also went apart with cult prostitutes or drunken female worshippers, and offered sacrifices with prostitutes instead of with and on behalf of their wives. This would have brought up short those in Israel who blamed the young women of Israel for their licentiousness, and yet excused their men-folk who were equally guilty. And at the bottom of this all this perverse sexual behaviour lay a lack of understanding of the will of YHWH. They had persuaded themselves that they were encouraging nature to become fertile as a result of ‘sympathetic magic' by which nature would follow heir example, and failed to recognise how much they were debasing themselves and dishonouring child-bearing. Thus this people who ‘do not understand' (compare Hosea 4:11), partly because they are licentious and drunk, will be ‘overthrown'. They will receive what is due to them from YHWH at the hands of their enemies.