Bible Verses About Hell
Introduction
Hell is one of the most pastorally significant and most frequently mishandled topics in Christian teaching. The damage done by careless handling of this subject is real and wide. People have left the faith because of a version of hell that bears little resemblance to what the biblical text actually says. Others carry a distorted image of God, a God who is essentially a torturer, into their spiritual lives and never fully receive the love and grace that Scripture consistently places at the center of the divine character. Still others have used the doctrine as a weapon: the threat that keeps people in line, the hammer that ends conversations, the trump card that substitutes for genuine engagement with the questions of suffering, justice, and the character of God.
None of this serves the Scripture. None of it serves the people the Scripture is for.
The honest starting point is the exegetical one: the English word "hell" is doing the work of at least three distinct biblical concepts that refer to genuinely different realities. Sheol in the Hebrew Old Testament, Hades in the Greek New Testament, and Gehenna in the teachings of Jesus are not interchangeable terms for the same place. They have different histories, different referents, and different theological functions. When every occurrence of these three words is translated as "hell" without distinction, the reader is given the impression of a single, consistent biblical doctrine that does not actually exist in the text. The flattening is not a minor translation issue. It shapes how the entire doctrine is received and taught.
The pastoral problem follows directly from the exegetical one. When the concept is flattened, it tends toward the most extreme possible reading of every passage, and the most extreme reading is presented as the obvious, self-evident, faithful Christian position. Serious scholars across the history of the church, including figures no one would dismiss as liberal or unfaithful, have held a range of views on the nature of final judgment. John Stott, one of the most influential evangelical theologians of the twentieth century, held what is called conditionalism or annihilationism: the view that the finally unrepentant are not tormented eternally but ultimately destroyed. These are not fringe positions invented to make people comfortable. They are serious engagements with the biblical text by people who took the text more seriously than those who simply inherited the tradition without examining it.
This article will work through what the Scripture actually says, using the terms the Scripture actually uses, with the seriousness the topic deserves and the honesty the people reading it need.
What the Bible Actually Means: Four Distinct Concepts
Sheol
The Hebrew word Sheol appears sixty-five times in the Old Testament and describes the realm of the dead: the place, or more precisely the condition, to which the dead go regardless of their moral standing. In the Old Testament, Sheol is not primarily a place of punishment. It is the destination of the righteous and the wicked alike. Jacob expects to go to Sheol when he dies (Genesis 37:35). The psalmist pleads to be saved from Sheol (Psalm 86:13). The book of Ecclesiastes reflects on Sheol as the common destination of all living things. The image is of the shadowy underworld where the dead exist in a diminished form, cut off from the praise of God and from the full life that the living experience.
The Sheol of the Old Testament does not map neatly onto the later Christian concept of hell as a place of conscious eternal torment. It is more the ancient Near Eastern concept of the underworld, and its primary theological function in the Old Testament is to establish the seriousness of death and the preciousness of life rather than to describe the specific fate of the wicked. The hope that develops across the Old Testament is not the hope of avoiding Sheol but the hope of being rescued from it: the resurrection hope that God will not abandon the faithful to Sheol but will bring them through it into life.
Hades
The Greek word Hades is the New Testament's primary equivalent to Sheol and is in fact the word used to translate Sheol in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Like Sheol, Hades in much of the New Testament refers to the realm of the dead in a broadly neutral sense: the place where the dead go between death and the final resurrection and judgment.
The most discussed Hades text is the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31, where the rich man is in Hades in torment while Lazarus is at Abraham's side. This parable is often read as a literal description of the afterlife, but several features of the text suggest more care is needed: it is a parable, it uses the imagery of the ancient Greco-Jewish underworld, and its primary purpose is to address the failure of the rich to care for the poor and the refusal to listen to Moses and the prophets. The parable is a serious warning, but reading it as a precise map of the geography of the afterlife goes beyond what parabolic literature is designed to do.
Revelation 20:14 is the most theologically significant Hades text: Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire. The clear implication is that Hades is not the final state. It is an intermediate condition that is itself ended at the final judgment. Whatever Hades is, it is not the destination. The lake of fire is the destination.
Gehenna
Gehenna is the word most often translated as "hell" in the New Testament and is the word Jesus uses in his most serious warnings about judgment. The word comes from the Hebrew Ge-Hinnom, the Valley of Hinnom, a ravine southwest of Jerusalem with a dark history: it was the site of child sacrifice in the era of the kings (2 Kings 23:10, Jeremiah 7:31) and became in later Jewish tradition the image of the place of divine judgment and destruction.
Jesus uses Gehenna in the Sermon on the Mount, in the woes against the scribes and Pharisees, and in the sayings about cutting off the hand or plucking out the eye rather than entering Gehenna whole. The consistent function of the Gehenna sayings is serious warning: the consequences of rejecting God and his kingdom are not trivial, and the person who is oriented entirely toward themselves rather than toward God and neighbor is moving toward a destination that Jesus describes with the most sobering language available to him.
What Gehenna does not do is settle the question of whether the final judgment involves conscious eternal torment, ultimate destruction, or some other form of consequence. The language of fire and destruction in the Gehenna texts is consistent with multiple readings, and the history of the image in Jewish literature does not point uniformly to eternal conscious suffering. The seriousness of the warnings is not in question. The precise nature of what the warnings describe is a question that the most careful biblical scholars have answered differently.
Read more: What is Gehenna in the Bible?
The Lake of Fire
The lake of fire appears in Revelation 19:20, 20:10, 20:14-15, and 21:8. It is the destination of the beast, the false prophet, the devil, Death, Hades, and those whose names are not found in the book of life. Revelation 20:10 describes the devil, beast, and false prophet as tormented day and night forever and ever, which is the strongest language in the New Testament for ongoing conscious suffering in the final state.
Revelation is apocalyptic literature, a genre that uses intense symbolic imagery to convey theological realities rather than to provide a literal description of future events. This does not mean the lake of fire is not real or that the warning is not serious. It means that the interpretive work of apocalyptic literature requires the same care that any other biblical genre requires, and that the images of fire and torment carry the full weight of the judgment they symbolize without necessarily settling every question about the precise nature of that judgment.
Bible Verses About the Warning Passages of Jesus
Matthew 5:22 — ("But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, 'Raca,' is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of Gehenna.")
The fire of Gehenna as the consequence of contempt for the neighbor is the first Gehenna saying in Matthew's Gospel. The context is the Sermon on the Mount's escalation of the law: the requirement goes deeper than the external act to the internal disposition. The Gehenna warning is not the threat that settles the question of the afterlife but the serious statement that the person who lives in contempt of the neighbor is moving toward a destination that Jesus names with the most sobering image available.
Matthew 10:28 — ("Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.")
The one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna is the specific warning about the fear that is proportionate to the actual stakes. The destroy is the Greek apollumi, the word for ruin or destruction rather than the word for torment: the one who can destroy both soul and body is the one whose judgment is final in a way that the death of the body alone is not. The word destroy is significant for the question of what Gehenna ultimately means.
Mark 9:43-48 — ("If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, where the fire never goes out... where 'the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.'")
The fire that never goes out and the worms that do not die are drawn from Isaiah 66:24, where they describe the dead bodies of those who have rebelled against God: the image in Isaiah is of destruction that is complete and permanent rather than ongoing conscious suffering. The unquenchable fire and the undying worm describe the finality and the completeness of the judgment rather than necessarily the ongoing conscious experience of it. The seriousness of the warning is not diminished by this reading: the consequences of the path Jesus is warning against are permanent and irreversible.
Matthew 25:41, 46 — ("Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels'... Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.")
The eternal fire and the eternal punishment of Matthew 25 are among the strongest judgment texts in the Gospels. The Greek word aionios, translated as eternal, describes the age to come and the quality of the judgment that belongs to it rather than simply an infinite duration of conscious experience. The same word describes the eternal life that the righteous receive: the eternal punishment and the eternal life are both the realities of the coming age rather than both requiring the reading of unending conscious duration.
Bible Verses About God's Justice and Judgment
Romans 2:5-8 — ("But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God will repay each person according to what they have done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.")
The wrath and anger for those who reject the truth and follow evil is the consistent New Testament teaching about the serious consequences of the rejection of God. The repaying of each person according to what they have done is the basis of the judgment: it is the righteous judgment of the God who sees everything rather than the arbitrary assignment of punishment. The eternal life as the specific gift to those who seek it establishes the asymmetry: the life is given, the wrath is the consequence of the rejection of the life.
2 Thessalonians 1:9 — ("They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.")
The everlasting destruction and the being shut out from the presence of the Lord are two dimensions of the final judgment in Paul's letter. The everlasting destruction is the aionios olethros, the destruction of the coming age: the word for destruction rather than torment. The shut out from the presence of the Lord is the relational dimension: the final consequence of the rejection of God is the completion of the rejection, the being cut off from the source of all life and goodness. Whether this involves ongoing conscious experience or the ultimate cessation of existence is a question that the text's language does not finally settle.
Hebrews 10:31 — ("It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.")
The dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God is the simple, serious statement of the biblical teaching about judgment without the elaboration of its specific nature. The living God is the one whose judgment is real and whose character is holy: the falling into his hands is the consequence of the persistent rejection of the grace he has offered. The dread is the appropriate response to the reality rather than the performance of the emotion.
Bible Verses About God's Character in Relation to Judgment
2 Peter 3:9 — ("The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.")
The not wanting anyone to perish but everyone to come to repentance is the specific statement of the divine will in relation to the final judgment: God does not desire the perishing of anyone. The patience of God is the provision of the time for the repentance that the perishing would foreclose. The perish is the Greek apollusthai, the destruction word rather than the torment word: the divine desire is that no one be destroyed.
Ezekiel 18:23 — ("Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?")
The do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked is the specific denial of the view that divine judgment is the expression of divine satisfaction in the suffering of the wicked. The pleased when they turn from their ways and live is the alternative: the divine pleasure is the repentance that leads to life rather than the death that follows the refusal to repent. The character of the God who judges is the character of the God who takes no pleasure in the death of anyone.
Revelation 20:11-15 — ("Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it... And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened... The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.")
The great white throne judgment is the comprehensive final reckoning: every person before the throne, the books of deeds opened, and the book of life consulted. The judged according to what they had done is the basis of the judgment: the God who sees everything judges everything. The lake of fire that follows for those not found in the book of life is the final destination that Revelation describes in its most serious apocalyptic language.
A Simple Way to Pray These Verses
The topic of judgment and the final consequences of the rejection of God is most honestly brought to God in the acknowledgment of both the seriousness of the warnings and the character of the God who warns. These verses can become prayers that hold both.
Matthew 10:28 — ("Be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.") Response: "Let the fear be the right fear: not the fear that drives me away from you but the fear that drives me toward you. The one who can destroy is the one who can also save. Let the seriousness of what is at stake produce the seriousness of my returning to you."
2 Peter 3:9 — ("Not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.") Response: "You do not want the perishing of anyone. That includes the people I am most tempted to consign to judgment in my own heart. Let your desire be the shape of my desire: that everyone would turn and live."
Ezekiel 18:23 — ("Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked?") Response: "Let me hold this alongside the warnings. The God who warns is the God who takes no pleasure in the death of anyone. The warnings are the last offer of the one who does not want what the warnings are warning about."
Frequently Asked Questions
What does the Bible say about hell? The Bible addresses the concept through several distinct terms that English translations often flatten into the single word "hell." Sheol in the Old Testament is the realm of the dead, broadly neutral and not primarily a place of punishment. Hades in the New Testament is the equivalent of Sheol, the intermediate state of the dead that Revelation 20:14 describes as itself being thrown into the lake of fire at the final judgment. Gehenna is the word Jesus uses for the place of final judgment, drawn from the Valley of Hinnom and used in serious warnings about the consequences of rejecting God. The lake of fire in Revelation is the final destination described in the most intense apocalyptic language. These are genuinely distinct concepts, and treating them as identical produces a picture of the afterlife that the biblical text does not actually present.
Did Jesus teach about hell? Yes, seriously and repeatedly. The Gehenna sayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels are among the most sobering warnings in the New Testament, and they establish clearly that Jesus understood the consequences of rejecting God and his kingdom as genuinely severe. What Jesus's Gehenna sayings do not do is settle every question about the precise nature of those consequences. The language he uses is drawn from Isaiah 66:24 and from the imagery of the Valley of Hinnom, and that language is consistent with more than one reading of the ultimate fate of the unrepentant. The seriousness of the warnings is not in question. The specific theology they imply about the nature and duration of punishment is a question the church has answered differently across its history.
What are the main views Christians hold about the final state of the unrepentant? Three positions have been held by serious, biblically faithful Christians across the history of the church. Eternal conscious torment, the traditional Western view, holds that the finally unrepentant suffer consciously and without end in the lake of fire. Conditionalism or annihilationism holds that the finally unrepentant are ultimately destroyed rather than tormented without end: the fire of judgment consumes rather than sustains. This view is held by a significant stream of evangelical scholarship including John Stott and John Wenham. Universal reconciliation holds that all people are ultimately restored to God, whether in this age or beyond it. Each position draws on genuine biblical texts and is argued by people who take those texts seriously. The present article does not endorse one position over another but recognizes that the complexity of the biblical material calls for humility rather than the certainty that has sometimes been used to harm people.
Why does the way hell is taught matter pastorally? Because the version of hell that has dominated popular Christian culture has done measurable damage to real people. The image of God as the cosmic torturer who sends the vast majority of humanity to eternal conscious suffering has driven people away from the faith, created a distorted understanding of the divine character that makes genuine love for God nearly impossible, and been used as a tool of manipulation and control in ways that Scripture does not support. This is not an argument for softening the biblical warnings. Jesus's Gehenna sayings are serious and they are in the text. It is an argument for handling the text with the care it deserves and for refusing to use the doctrine as a weapon or a performance of theological toughness. The God who does not want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9) and who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 18:23) is the God whose judgment is real and whose character is consistent.
What is the difference between hell, Sheol, Hades, and the lake of fire? Sheol is the Old Testament Hebrew term for the realm of the dead, broadly neutral and the destination of the righteous and wicked alike in most of its uses. Hades is the New Testament Greek equivalent, generally describing the intermediate state between death and the final judgment. Gehenna is the specific word Jesus uses for the place of final judgment, drawn from the Valley of Hinnom and used in his most serious warnings. The lake of fire is Revelation's image for the final destination after the Great White Throne judgment, the place where Death and Hades are themselves thrown at the end. These articles on Sheol, Hades, and Final Judgment explore each concept in detail.
