Judas, who had betrayed Jesus, saw that Jesus had been condemned. He was full of remorse and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders and said,
‘I have sinned, I betrayed innocent blood.’
But they said to him,
‘What does that have to do with us?’
Judas cast down the thirty pieces of silver and went away and hanged himself. And then his body fell to the ground and his bowels burst and gushed out.
The chief priests took the silver and said,
‘It is not lawful to put this money into the treasury, since it is blood money.’
They met together and decided to buy a potter’s field in which to bury foreigners.
When they did this, they fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah who said,
‘And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him whom some of the children of Israel had set and they bought a potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.’
This field became known to all those that lived in Jerusalem as Akeldama which means, the field of blood.
