"And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Mark 9:43,44

In this verse the word "hell" is translated from the Greek word "Gehenna," which is another name for the Valley of Hinnom just outside the walls of Jerusalem. There the refuse and bodies of animals were cast into an ever smoldering fire to be consumed. What might escape the flames was constantly being destroyed by maggots which fed on the dead bodies. Gehenna symbolized a place of total destruction.

Jesus taught in this verse that the fire of hell could not be quenched or put out by anyone. Isaiah said "they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame." Isaiah 47:14. Yet he hastened to say in the same verse, "there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit before it." So the unquenchable fire will go out after it has finished its work. Jerusalem burned with unquenchable fire (Jeremiah 17:27), but it was totally destroyed (II Chronicles 36:19-21).

The flames and worms of Gehenna represented the total annihilation and obliteration of sin and sinners. With the fires of Gehenna burning before their eyes Jesus could not have spoken a more graphic word to the Pharisees to describe the final total destruction of sinners.

Those who cite this text to support their doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul are thrown into a real dilemma. Why? Because the fire and worms are working, not upon disembodied souls, but bodies! In Matthew 5:30 Christ said, "the whole body" would be cast into hell.

In Isaiah 66:24 the same Gehenna picture of hell is presented with the unquenchable flame and the destroying worms. But in this case the word "carcasses" is used, revealing the fact that the fire consumes dead bodies, not disembodied souls.