It's not a place of merciless, unending torture where a person burns and burns and yet never burns up. This fire will in fact consume the wicked completely and turn them into ashes. They will then be dead forever with no further hope of resurrection. Even the memory of them will perish (Isaiah 26:14). "'For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which is coming shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, 'that will leave them neither root nor branch'" (Malachi 4:1). Also Malachi 4:3 states, "'You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this,' says the Lord of hosts."

John the Baptist warned the Pharisees that if they did not repent they would be burned up as chaff or rubbish: "And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire (Matthew 3:10). Furthermore, verse 12 declares, "His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

In Matthew 13:30 Jesus likened wicked people to tares—weeds that are gathered in bundles at the time of the harvest and are totally burned up. Psalm 37:20 says: "But the wicked shall perish; and the enemies of the Lord, like the splendor of the meadows, shall vanish. Into smoke they shall vanish away." Our merciful God will quickly end the lives of sinful, unrepentant individuals. They will not live on forever burning in torment and agony (Revelation 20:14, Romans 6:23).