Chrisgel & Naomi@
Actually if you study your Bible you will see that many times when referring to fire it is to show thorough destruction because if something is totally and completely burnt up then it is gone forever. It does not refer to burning in fire forever. Once something is burnt and destroyed that is it!
Therefore the scripture used by Naomi is an illustration to denote the complete destruction of the wicked.
For example the scripture at Mark 9 v 43 - 49 talking about cutting off your hand and pulling out your eye and throwing it into Gehenna is not literal but illustrative.
God does not want anyone to be destroyed but warns them first.
Also the Revelation scripture, actually all this passage says is that the wicked are tormented, not that they are tormented forever. The text states that it is the smoke—the evidence that the fire has done its work of destruction—that continues forever, not the fiery torment.
Rather than proving hellfire, you need to look at a similar prophecy in Isaiah when God warned the nation of Edom that they would be punished if they continued with their emnity towards Isreal. - Isaiah 34 v 9 & 10.
"Edom's streams will be turned into pitch, her dust into burning sulphur; her land will become blazing pitch! It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste ; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.
Was Edom hurled into some mythical hellfire to burn forever? Of course not. Rather, the nation completely disappeared from the world scene as if she had been totally consumed with fire and sulphur. The final result of the punishment was not everlasting torment but “emptiness . . . wasteness . . . nothing.” (Isaiah 34:11, 12) The smoke ‘thereof shall go up ever"’ vividly illustrates this. When a house burns down, smoke keeps coming from the ashes for some time after the flames have died down, providing onlookers with evidence that there has been a destructive conflagration.