These leaders were willing to pay out blood money for Jesus' capture, willing to allow Judas's suicide, but too pious to accept their own blood money into the temple treasury. Jewish law prescribed for false witnesses the penalty they had wished to inflict on others (Deut 19:16-21; 11QTemple 61.7-1); since the chief priests refuse to serve the cause of justice, Judas has to see to his own execution (Meier 1980:338-39). Although Roman society regarded suicide as an honorable and noble way to die, all readers would recognize Judas's act as one of despair, a dishonorable suicide (compare 2 Sam 17:23; Philo Mut. 61-62; see also Acts 1:18-19). Hanging oneself in a sanctuary (F. Grant 1953:12) would defile it, and while Judas left the temple to perform the deed, the leaders' blatant unconcern for justice or for his life contrasts starkly with their attention to purity in details. By sentencing Judas to take care of his own guilt, they have unconsciously sentenced themselves before God (Mt 12:34-37).