Rarely do people die because they hurt someone. Instead, they die, at one age or another, because we all were born into a system in which eventually everyone dies. The only book that truly explains this situation is the oldest book in existence, the Holy Bible. Its writers were inspired by God, and so what they wrote merits our interest. One of those inspired penmen wrote almost three thousand years ago: “The living are conscious that they will die.”​—Eccl. 9:5.

Condition of the Dead

This same Bible writer who wrote, “For the living are conscious that they will die,” continued that very sentence with a statement that surprises many persons. He said: “But as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all.”​—Eccl. 9:5, 10.

This idea surprises persons who have been taught in their churches that the dead not only are conscious, but are consciously suffering punishments or enjoying rewards. Who has not heard the idea that the dead are suffering in a hellfire or purgatory or are enjoying the blessings of heaven? Yet God’s Word, the Bible, says the dead “are conscious of nothing at all.”

Verify this for yourself. Get your own copy of the Bible, and read these words in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter nine, verses five and ten.