The Greek that is translated in English as “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood” or similar is translated in Amele as “I betrayed [yesterday’s past] a man without fault.” (Source: Tim Stirtz and Mike Cahill in Watters / de Blois 2023, p. 413)

John Roberts explains (see here ) In Amele the translator has to be alert as to when to use the appropriate degree of absolute tense. For example, in Matt 27.4 in example (17), the verbs have sinned and have betrayed are expressed as past in past in English. However, in the context of the speech utterance, Judas is reporting an event that took place the previous night. In Amele culture a ‘day’ in respect of degrees of past tense is a complete day-night cycle. The dawn is the start of a new day, i.e., a new day-night cycle. In Matt 27:1 it says ‘Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people came to the decision to put Jesus to death’. Thus, assuming that they met some time early in the morning after dawn, from the Amele perspective the report by Judas in 27:4 would refer to events that happened on the previous day. The Amele translation therefore needs to be in yesterday’s past tense.”