How is the lake of fire different from Hades?

Revelation 20 portrays Hades giving up the dead and then being cast, with death, into the lake of fire. That literary distinction is one reason not to flatten every term into a single state. The lake of fire is called the second death within the vision. Christians disagree about precisely what this imagery means for the character and duration of punishment. Apocalyptic writing uses symbols with theological force; taking those symbols seriously does not require treating them as a photograph. Read the judgment scene alongside the renewal of creation in the following chapters, rather than separating it from Revelation’s promised end of death.