If we take literally the image of hell as fire, it clashes with the other images of hell, for example, hell as darkness, or hell as the wicked being cut to pieces (Mt. 24:51). Rather than giving us literal pictures of the fate of the wicked, God uses dreaded pictures from this world to present the terrible reality of hell in the next world. I stand with the majority of contemporary conservative scholars in understanding the biblical imagery of hell metaphorically rather than literally.