Persecution is like when someone is pointing out a hole (let's imagine it's about a ship that is leaking) to be plugged or plugging it, the whole crew goes mad, because for the crew the one pointing out there are holes is the hole, so instead of plugging the actual hole they throw the "hole" (i.e. the persecuted) off the ship to be eaten by sharks and continue until there's noone pointing out the holes and then they all go down with the ship.