Persecution of the apostles was not something new:
John 16:1 “I have said these
things to you so that you will not fall away. 2
They will expel you from the synagogue,[
a] but an hour is coming that everyone who kills you will think they are offering service to God. 3 And they will do these
things because they do not know the Father or me. 4 But I have said these
things to you so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you about them.
Luke 11:48 So you are witnesses who consent to the deeds of your fathers: They killed the prophets, and you build their tombs. 49
Because of this, the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles; some of them they will kill and others they will persecute.’
Jeremiah 2:30
"I have struck your sons in vain; they accepted no discipline. Your own sword has devoured your prophets like a voracious lion.
1 Thess 2:14 For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Judea that are in Christ Jesus. You suffered from your own countrymen the very things they suffered from the Jews, 15
who killedboth the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, anddrove us out as well. They are displeasing to God and hostile to all men,