---
title: Revelation 20:10
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-20-10/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-20-10.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Revelation 20:10
testament: NT
section: Prophecy
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Revelation 20:10

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, into which the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "they will be tormented day and night forever and ever"

## JW Usage

Watchtower commentary reads Revelation 20:10 as describing symbolic eternal destruction. The "lake of fire" is the "second death" (per v14) — total annihilation from which there is no resurrection. The Devil, the wild beast, and the false prophet are not literally tormented forever; they cease to exist forever. "Tormented day and night forever and ever" is taken as a hyperbolic intensifier for permanent oblivion, not as a description of conscious suffering.

## Protestant Usage

The Greek verb basanizō means "to torture, torment" — to inflict painful, conscious affliction. Annihilation cannot be tormented. Furthermore, v14 says death itself is thrown into the lake of fire — death cannot be annihilated, so the lake of fire means more than ceasing to exist. And the Devil's "torment day and night forever and ever" is precisely parallel to the worshippers of the beast in Revelation 14:11 ("they have no rest day or night"). The same language is applied to humans. Jesus's warnings about hell — "where the worm never dies and the fire is never quenched" (Mark 9:48) — describe the same reality. Treat eternal punishment as Jesus's own urgent pastoral warning, not as theological ammunition. The doctrine is grim, but Jesus delivered it from love.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Hell Is Real](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/hell-annihilationism.md) — Jesus on Eternal Punishment [Eschatology]