Acts 23:3

Then said Paul unto him, God shall smite thee, thou whited wall: and sittest thou to judge me according to the law, and commandest me to be smitten contrary to law? And they that stood by said, Revilest thou God's high priest?

God shall smite thee ... This was doubtless a prophecy put in Paul's mouth by the Lord; for it is a fact that not many years later the reprobate Ananias was murdered by his own people at the time of the beginning of the Jewish war.

Contrary to law ... It was illegal to smite a man who had not been condemned; and, as yet, Paul had not even been tried; but such nice distinctions concerning the rights of defendants had long before ceased to exist in the reprobate court known as the Sanhedrin. The final years of that once sacred tribunal were marked by every kind of vice and venality.

Revilest thou God's high priest ... ? It WAS illegal to revile an authority such as the high priest; but the Sanhedrinists were much quicker to defend that law than they were to honor the law forbidding striking a man illegally.