Joel - You could have simply quoted Revelation 14:9-11 and pointed out what are to you the features of the passage which suggest that hell is a post mortem punishment following judgement which entails conscious suffering for eternity.

I’d like to point out some further features of the passage.

First hell (gehenna/hades) is not mentioned here. The features of the passage may relate it to descriptions of hell elsewhere, but hell as a place of eternal punishment is not explicitly mentioned or developed.

Second, the day of judgement is not mentioned here. Again, you can say the passage contains the features of punishment following judgement - but these ideas are not explicitly developed.

What can be said with certainty about the passage?

Those who worship the beast will experience God’s anger - described in the severest of terms.

The torment of God’s anger is said to take place not in hell (gehenna or hades), but “in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb”.

The ‘eternal’ consequence of God’s anger is described as “the smoke of their torment”. This could infer consciousness of torment, but the metaphor does not dictate that this is the meaning. It could equally refer to destruction following torment.

That there may be conscious torment for eternity could be inferred from “they have no rest day or night” - but at this point we need to consider how metaphor works in Revelation as a whole, and apply that to our exegesis here. Rarely if ever are we encouraged to take a detailed point by point correspondence between metaphor and referent in Revelation. If this were the case, we would encounter some challenging ideas about how ‘the angels’ and ‘the Lamb’ will be spending their time in eternity. Usually the writer is aiming for dramatic effect rather than detailed meaning - here, describing the almost undescribable - the moment when those who have opposed a holy God face his anger, and receive irreversible destruction.

The annihilationist position does not jettison the horror of facing an angry God and his judgement, but makes some distinctions about how that judgement is dispensed for those who incur it. The position deserves to be heard and weighed. To weigh means to give careful consideration, not reject out of hand. All are agreed that the day of judgement will be a terrible day for those who have rejected God and his purposes.

I would again point back to the striking feature of Jesus’s teaching on hell, which is that it was directed at two groups of people: those who had the greatest understanding of the scriptures, but the least understanding of God - ie the Pharisees, and those who had the greatest light about God and were warned of the consequences of rejecting that light - ie the disciples.