Hades, according to various Christian denominations, is "the place or state of departed spirits".
In the Septuagint (an ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek), the Greek term ᾅδης (Hades) is used to translate the Hebrew term שאול (Sheol) in, for example, Isaiah 38:18.
In New Testament Greek, the Hebrew phrase "לא־תעזב נפשׁי לשׁאול" (you will not abandon my soul to Sheol) in Psalm 16:10 is quoted in Acts 2:27 as "οὐκ ἐγκαταλείψεις τὴν ψυχήν μου εἰς ᾅδου" (you will not abandon my soul to Hades).
In the Textus Receptus version of the New Testament, on which the English King James Version is based, the word "ᾅδης" (Hades), appears 11 times; but critical editions of the text of 1 Corinthians 15:55 have "θάνατος" (death) in place of "ᾅδης". Except in this verse of 1 Corinthians, where it uses "grave", the King James Version translates "ᾅδης" as "hell". Modern translations, for which there are only 10 instances of the word "ᾅδης" in the New Testament, generally transliterate it as "Hades".
The word "ᾅδης" is usually related to afterlife punishment. The most notable example is Luke's parable of Lazarus and the rich man, in which the rich man finds himself, after death, in Hades, and "in anguish in this flame", while in contrast the angels take Lazarus to "the bosom of Abraham", described as a state of comfort.