Let another take his office

Let their habitation be desolate, and let none dwell in their tents. And: let his days be few, and let another take his office.

Two lament psalms of an innocent man under persecution, which Peter applies to Judas after the ascension, as the reason to choose a twelfth apostle. Jesus himself calls Judas in his last prayer 'the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled'. Matthew and Acts tell Judas's death differently: he hanged himself, or he fell in the field; interpreters try to connect the accounts or let the difference stand. The cursing psalms are hard for many readers; the New Testament applies them to the fate of the betrayer, not as a command to take revenge.