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Fire and brimstone


Fire and brimstone (or, alternatively, brimstone and fire, translated from the Hebrew גפרית ואש) is an idiomatic expression of signs of God's wrath in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and the New Testament. In the Bible, they often appear in reference to the fate of the unfaithful. "Brimstone", the archaic name for sulfur, evokes the acrid odor of volcanic activity. The term is also used, sometimes pejoratively, to describe a style of Christian preaching that uses vivid descriptions of judgment and eternal damnation to encourage repentance.

The King James translation of the Bible often renders passages about fiery torments with the phrase "fire and brimstone". In Genesis 19, God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah with a rain of fire and brimstone, and in Deuteronomy 29, the Israelites are warned that the same punishment would fall upon them should they abandon their covenant with God. Elsewhere, divine judgments involving fire and sulfur are prophesied against Assyria (Isaiah 30), Edom (Isaiah 34), Gog (Ezekiel 38), and all the wicked (Psalm 11).

The breath of God, in Isaiah 30:33, is compared to brimstone: "The breath of Jehovah, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it."

Fire and brimstone frequently appear as agents of divine wrath throughout the Book of Revelation culminating in chapters 19–21, wherein Satan and the ungodly are cast into a lake of fire and brimstone as an eternal punishment:


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