Mark 9:47-48 says that the wicked in hell will face worms that do not die and fire that is not quenched, citing Isaiah 66:24 (more will be said on this quotation below). For multiple reasons, this cannot be confirmation that the Bible teaches eternal torment in hell because it teaches that sinners will die for good in hell over and over, as I have extensively written on and as will be detailed below. Among these reasons are the fact that a fire could be unquenchable until it burns something up and dies down and the fact that even truly everlasting fire would not mean that things inside the fire are not burned to the point of genuine death or destruction. This does not follow from a fire being unquenchable. One can also find examples of such things in other parts of the Bible.
Jeremiah 17:27 says that God would use an unquenchable fire to consume Jerusalem if it persists in sin, the destruction of the city reportedly taking place in 587 or 586 BC due to the Babylonians under Nebuchadnezzar. Does this or any text from the Bible say that Jerusalem will be endlessly on fire but still intact and unperishing from the time of the Babylonian conquest onward? Of course not! What it teaches is that the fire would not be quenched before it accomplished its purpose, that being the destruction of the capital city of Judah. This is not the only place the Bible uses this phrase in reference to fire that would not be burning something without that thing ever being destroyed.
Speaking in advance of a Christological, eschatological event, John the Baptist says in Matthew 3:12 that the wicked will be burned up like chaff (3:12), the leftover husks of corn. Elsewhere in Matthew, the wicked are said by Jesus to be like weeds that will be burned (13:24-30, 36-43), which, like husks, do not burn without end or being fully consumed. Matthew 3:12 even says the wicked are burned "up." Of course, Jesus also says in Matthew 10:28 that humans can kill the bodies of other humans, but that God can destroy both the soul and the body, which is why he is to be feared more than mere mortals who can neither live forever on their own (John 3:16, 1 Timothy 6:16) nor prevent anyone else's resurrection (Daniel 12:2).
As if things like God saying that the soul that sins will die (Ezekiel 18:4), the wages of sin as death being contrasted with literal eternal life (Romans 6:23), the only possible alternative to eternal life being nonexistence of consciousness (Daniel 12:2, John 3:16, 5:24-29), infinite torture being the utmost injustice (Deuteronomy 25:1-3, Exodus 21:23-25), and immortality not being the default nature of sinful beings with a broken relationship with God (Genesis 3:19, 22-24, Romans 2:7, and, again, 1 Timothy 6:16) do not already make it as clear as language can that death awaits people in hell instead of eternal suffering, unquenchable fire in no way has to require eternal torture. An eternal fire does not logically necessitate that everything or anything thrown inside also lasts forever, but unquenchable does not even have to mean eternal.
Similarly, 2 Peter 2:6 very obviously says the "eternal fire" of Jude 1:7 is one that burns its inhabitants to ashes. They are not suffering flames or worms forever. Isaiah 66:24, which Mark 9:48 quotes, says it is speaking of dead bodies that these worms consume. 2 Peter 2:6 is extremely clear about the punitive fate of the wicked being annihilation by fire, with the ashes of their bodies remaining, but there are many other passages that say with similar clarity that the punishment of hell is a literal death in its fire or that those who are not righteous will not live forever. Jeremiah 17:27 just happens to illustrate how the language of unquenchable fire in Mark 9 would not in any way have to (and it does not) refer to a fire that literally never ends—which in itself would, as stated, already not require that everything or anything placed in the fire share that same eternality.
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