After their return from the Babylonian captivity according to the biblical narrative it was re-erected () where it had formerly stood. When Antiochus IV Epiphanes pillaged Jerusalem, he defiled the Altar of Burnt Offering by erecting a pagan altar upon it. The First Book of Maccabees recounts how Judas Maccabeus renewed the altar when he re-took Jerusalem. Since the existing altar had been defiled by the blood of pagan sacrifices the old stones of the altar were removed and replaced with new, unhewn ones. However, since the old stones had been previously sanctified by the Jewish sacrifices they could not be moved to an unclean place; so they remained on the Temple Mount, until there should come a prophet to tell what to do with them. ().