WHAT DOES THE BIBLE
ACTUALLY SAY ABOUT HELL?

"To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.." -- Isaiah 8:20, New King James Version
Unless otherwise stated, all Biblical quotations are from the World English Bible translation.

Ezekiel

(109)  Ezekiel 31:15-17 - Thus says the Lord Yahweh: In the day when he went down to Sheol I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the rivers of it; and the great waters were stayed; and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him. I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to Sheol with those who descend into the pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the lower parts of the earth. They also went down into Sheol with him to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were his arm, [that] lived under his shadow in the midst of the nations. In this scripture Yahweh is speaking of Pharaoh of Egypt. (Ezekiel 31:2) Some commentators say that Yahweh is speaking of the king of Assyria. (Ezekiel 31:3) Sheol occurs three times in these verses. The King James Version twice renders it as "hell", here and once as "grave". The JFB Commentary tells us that his being cast into sheol is equivalent to, "I cast him into oblivion" (compare Isaiah 14:9-11)*. There is nothing here that gives us any thought that the ones being spoken of in sheol were being tortured.
======== *Fausset, A. R., A.M. "Commentary on Ezekiel 31". "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible". 1874.
http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/JamiesonFaussetBrown/jfb.cgi?book=eze&chapter=031

(110)  Ezekiel 32:21 - The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of Sheol with those who help him: they are gone down, they lie still, even the uncircumcised, slain by the sword. The speaks of the king of Egypt, and of the death of his rulership. Pictorially, the kings that have gone before into oblivion are said to "speak" with a taunting cry to the King of Egypt, to the effect that he and his helpers would join them in their condition, where they have fallen from their former poistion of pomp and pride, and have been made to lie still in the oblivious condition of sheol. This scripture is similiar to Isaiah 14:9. The language used here is similar to that when we say that history "speaks" to us, not that the former kings actually spoke. (See also Genesis 4:10) Any idea of sheol containing compartments of living souls after death would have to be read into what is being said.

(111)  Ezekiel 32:27 - They shall not lie with the mighty who are fallen of the uncircumcised, who are gone down to Sheol with their weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads, and their iniquities are on their bones; for [they were] the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. This is a continuation of verse 21 above and continues to speak of the same thing. We should note here that it is speaking figuratively of oblivion, or the condition of the grave. Literally man did take their weapons of war to their graves with them, but this is speaking figuratively of not only these mighty ones of the uncircumcised being in sheol, but also their weapons of war have become inactive along with them their inactivity in sheol. If this were literal and speaking of the some compartments in sheol where the soul or spirits of people continue in life after death, one would have also reason that they carried their weapons of war into the compartment of sheol, and actually alive there with their literal swords under their heads. Again, one would have to read into this the compartment theory of sheol, or that these were actually alive in sheol.