Jeremiah 37:14
Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans. But he hearkened not to him: so Irijah took Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes. Then said Jeremiah, It is false; I fall not away to the Chaldeans. But he hearkened not to him: so Irijah took Jeremiah, and brought him to the princes.
Jeremiah denied the false charge that he was leaving Jerusalem to desert to the Chaldeans and go over to the Babylonians. His urging of Judah's leaders to submit to Babylon was not defection to the enemy. He was trying to leave Jerusalem as the city was about to fall because he regarded his work there as finished.
Irijah rejected his denial, seized him, and brought him to the princes. The princes believed the accusation because they hated him and blamed him for the calamity he had predicted. They had him beaten, and despite his denial he was arrested and imprisoned.