Revelation 20:14-15
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The context
The chapter describes a final assize: a throne, books opened, the dead judged by what is written, and the sea giving up its dead. Then death and Hades themselves are thrown into the fire, and the sentence closes with the book of life. The imagery is cumulative and symbolic rather than sequential in a simple way.
What it establishes
It establishes that death is not a permanent boundary but an enemy that is itself judged, and that the final criterion is whether a name is written rather than what a person accomplished. The vision puts the end of death inside the judgment, not after it.
What it does not establish
It does not settle the debate about hell. Both those who expect endless conscious punishment and those who expect final destruction cite this passage, and the phrase second death can be read either way. The verse is symbolic vision, and it does not adjudicate the question it is enlisted for.
Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.
Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.