“Then he will say, in turn, to those on his left, ‘Be on your way from me, you who have been cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.

Matthew 25:41-43.

2. What does being under the “curse” mean for the goatlike ones?

² The King Jesus Christ points out that the people like “goats” failed to do the things that the “sheep” class did. For such failure he tells them to get away from him. He does not want them as earthly subjects during his reign of a thousand years. They are “cursed” persons. They are under the divine curse rather than under the blessing that the sheeplike persons gained from the King’s heavenly Father. This means that the divine judgment, as foretold in the Bible prophecies, pronounces bad things to come upon them. They are under the divine curse, and there is no provision to lift that curse from them as was the case with the natural circumcised Jews who were under the curse of Jehovah’s Law covenant with them. (Galatians 3:13) They are cursed, just as Satan the Devil and his demon angels are. Hence, they deserve an everlasting future like that of the Devil and his angels​—“the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.”

3. (a) What do the churches of Christendom claim that the “fire prepared for the Devil and his angels” means for the “goats”? (b) What does the Revelation itself explain the ‘lake burning with fire and sulphur’ to mean?

³ Does this mean everlasting conscious torment in a firelike element in the invisible realm (the spirit realm) where Satan and his demon angels are? This is what religious churches of Christendom have taught for centuries. They will refer to Revelation 20:10 as a support of their teaching, for in that Bible verse it is written: “And the Devil who was misleading them was hurled into the lake of fire and sulphur, where both the wild beast and the false prophet [already were]; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” However, sulphur or brimstone does not exist in the spirit realm where Satan and his demon angels are. The language is evidently figurative, just as the “wild beast” and the “false prophet” are. So the “lake of fire and sulphur” is figurative of what? The fourteenth verse of the same chapter Re 20:14 explains, saying: “And death and Haʹdes were hurled into the lake of fire. This means the second death, the lake of fire.” Revelation 21:8 repeats this explanation of the “lake that burns with fire and sulphur,” saying: “This means the second death.”

4. How does this agree with Hebrews 2:14 as to what is to be done to the Devil?

⁴ This agrees with the plain literal language of Hebrews 2:14, which speaks in no figurative way, saying: “Therefore, since the ‘young children’ are sharers of blood and flesh, he [Jesus] also similarly partook of the same things, that through his death he might bring to nothing the one having the means to cause death, that is, the Devil.” In God’s due time the once dead but now resurrected and glorified Jesus brings Satan the Devil “to nothing”; that is, he annihilates that wicked, murderous one. He brings about the destruction of the Devil. The once bruised Jesus, who is primarily the “seed” of God’s “woman,” is God’s appointed one to bruise the Serpent in the head.​—Genesis 3:15; Romans 16:20.

5. (a) So what is the “everlasting fire” reserved for the Devil and his angels, and into which the goatlike class are sent? (b) Why does the goats’ not doing direct injury to Christ’s brothers not put them in a neutral position?

⁵ Consequently, the “second death” is what is reserved for the Devil and his angels, and it is this same everlasting destruction, symbolized by “everlasting fire,” into which the delinquent “goat” class of people go away from the King Jesus Christ.