Was hell always a place of eternal torture, or did Jesus mean something else? In Mark 9:42 to 48, Jesus talks about cutting off your hand, an unquenchable fire, and a worm that never dies. He is quoting Isaiah 66:24, and the setting he has in mind is the Valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. Once you know what those words meant to his first listeners, this passage sounds very different. If you grew up hearing this passage as a threat, this breakdown is for you. We look at Gehenna in the Bible, what the Valley of Hinnom was, where Isaiah's image comes from, and why Jesus opens the whole passage with a warning about harming the vulnerable.