thirty pieces of silver

Cultural  

1. The money Judas Iscariot received for betraying Jesus to the authorities. He later threw the money into the Temple of Jerusalem (see also Jerusalem), and the chief priests bought the “potter's field” with it, to be used as a cemetery for foreigners.

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“Thirty pieces of silver” is also used proverbially to refer to anything paid or given for a treacherous act.

This money is referred to as “blood money” — money received for the life of another human being.

Example Sentences

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thirty pieces of silver

“Although I am rather hungry, and you have, after all, just sold a memento of my childhood for thirty pieces of silver, so to speak.”

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole

A secret voice, which she could not silence, told her: Helen will not sell her soul for thirty pieces of silver, nor for so many millions, nor for anything in the world.

From Problematic Characters A Novel by Friedrich Spielhagen

What did the thirty pieces of silver do for Judas?

From Weighed and Wanting Addresses on the Ten Commandments by Dwight Lyman Moody

Judas had received the thirty pieces of silver and began his remorse by taking them, in a red purse, back to the priests, who scoffed at him and turned him out. 

From Castellinaria and Other Sicilian Diversions by Henry Festing Jones

Judas Iscariot sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver.

From Lives of Celebrated Women by Samuel G. (Samuel Griswold) Goodrich