**Credit to user [Mark Edward](/users/9272) from whom this text is taken, from the end of [a long answer](/a/25820/53502) to [a different question](/questions/25794)** I’m pasting it because it is the only text we found on the se addressing what Annihilationists use as basis. If you dislike it, you can try to provide a better answer: > ### Annihilationism > Where conditionalism defines human immortality as conditional upon a right relationship with God, annihilationism is defined as a direct punishment of death from God. Qualitatively, there is no distinction between 'death' and 'annihilation'; the latter word is used solely to clarify just what it is that 'death' consists of. >Again, on a broader level, annihilationists believe the bible teaches that humans who are ultimately unrepentant will suffer death / cessation of existence. Poetic idioms in the Psalms are said to accurately describe a lack of existence, prophetic metaphors are said to capture the essence of a lack of existence, and the 'plain meaning' of basic words are said to describe a lack of existence directly. > The final fate of the unsaved is: _______ - To vanish like smoke (Psalm 37:20) - Like the snail that melts into slime, like the stillborn child that never sees the sun (Psalm 58:8) - Like smoke that is driven away, like wax melts before a fire (Psalm 68:2) - Like a dream when one awakes (Psalm 73:20) - Destroyed, wiped out all remembrance of them (Isaiah 26:14) - Stubble in a burning oven; leaving them neither root nor branch; ashes under the soles of the righteous' feet (Malachi 4:1-3) - Slaying of body and soul (Matthew 10:28) - Eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46) - Death (Romans 6:23) - Eternal destruction (2 Thessalonians 1:9) - Like Sodom and Gomorrah: turned to ashes, and condemned to extinction (2 Peter 2:6) - The second death (Revelation 2:11ff)