He outlawed all forms of Judaism. He boiled seven brothers alive in front of their mother for refusing to renounce their faith. He banned circumcision and killed all babies who had undergone this Jewish rite of passage. He then hung their dead bodies around their mothers necks as the women were executed. He executed anyone who rested on the Sabbath or observed the other feasts of the Lord. He commanded all copies of Scripture to be burned. He then fulfilled a prophecy in Daniel 9:27 called the "abomination of desolation".
Antiochus took over the Temple in Jerusalem and desecrated the altar by offering an unclean animal, a pig, to an idol of Zeus Olympus. Some versions of this story say he forced the priests to eat the flesh of the pig. The Jewish people led by the Maccabees later revolted and were able to regain their Temple almost three years later. Antiochus died of sudden disease the next year. The descendants of the Maccabees continued to rule until the reign of Herod the Great.