“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”
Matthew 25:46 — Greek Interlinear
Church Fathers on Matthew 25:46
Some deceive themselves, saying, that the fire indeed is called everlasting, but not the punishment. This the Lord foreseeing, sums up His sentence in these words.
Observe that whereas He put first the invitation, 'Come, ye blessed,' and after that, 'Depart, ye cursed,' because it is the property of a merciful God to record the good deeds of the good, before the bad deeds of the bad; He now reverses the order, describing first the punishment of the wicked, and then the life of the good, that the terrors of the one may deter us from evil, and the honour of the other incite us to good.
If he who has not given to others is visited with so heavy a punishment, what shall he get who is convicted of having robbed others of their own.