Lazarus and the Rich man teaches souls survive physical death and are conscious, either in paradise or Hades where there are torments for sins done while alive.
The rich man and Lazarus is a parable in amogst many others. These illustrations are designed to teach us something....but immortality of the soul is not one of them.
The rich man was not said to be wicked, nor was the beggar said to be righteous. The rich man represented the Pharisees who looked after themselves very well but ignored the ones who were spiritually impoverished and malnourished, like the beggar. In time, both died (indicating a change in status) and they changed places. The "bosom of Abraham" was a position of favor and the Pharisees as a group lost divine favor because they rejected the son of God who was sent to save those of his chosen nation who remained faithful. The ones who were like the beggar, "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" to whom Jesus was sent exclusively, responded when he began gathering them to be his disciples.
The Pharisees were tormented by Jesus exposing them as religious frauds and hypocrites of the worst order.
The fire was their fury and they wanted the beggar to dip his finger in some water to cool their tongue. They wanted the message to be watered down so as not to cause them such discomfort.
Taken literally, it would make heaven and hell in speaking distance of one another and a drop of water would cool someone in a fire.....seriously? It makes much more sense as a teaching tool....a parable.
The texts you cite in the OT, in context do not say what you suggest. The theocratic covenant with God is paramount in their mind, death then is an abstraction, a violation that will be fixed in the resurrection. So they don't focus on what happens after death, they are focused on the resurrection.
What do you understand Jesus to have meant when he told the Pharisees...
."Serpents, offspring of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment of Ge·henʹna?" (Matthew 23:33)
Or as the KJV incorrectly translates it..
."Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?" This "hell" is "gehenna" not "hades". What is the difference between "gehenna" and "hades"? Which one of these words corresponds to "sheol" in Hebrew? It is important to understand the difference.
The OT was the only scripture Jesus used in his ministry, as the apostle Paul said in 2 Tim 3:16-17....
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."....so we had better know what it says because that is what Jesus taught.
Notice the logic. The soul that sins will die:
4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die. (Ezek. 18:4 KJV)
The soul that stops sinning will live:
21 But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. (Ezek. 18:21 KJV)
The "soul" here is the person. This is a statement about the person themselves, not some thing that lives inside them that never dies.The righteous are promised everlasting life but the wicked are headed for everlasting death. There is no heaven or hell...there is just life or death. God has no need to punish the wicked with anything else.
Therefore, you are wrong. God says the souls that stop sinning will not die, even though everyone dies a physical death their souls do not:
The other scriptures I showed you say otherwise. There is no consciousness in death. No one goes anywhere but the grave. It is the resurrection that restores life for the majority of humans who have ever lived and died.
Jesus promised to call them out of their graves, as I showed you in John 5:28-29....
"Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, 29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation."
Again the KJV is a poor rendering because the last word rendered "damnation" is actually "judgment". This is saying that after their resurrection, those who do good are assured of continuing life, but those who won't bring their lives into harmony with God's directions will be judged unworthy to retain life.
Can you see that Jesus calls the righteous and the unrighteous from their graves. They are not in heaven, but back here on earth.
55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
(1 Cor. 15:55-57 KJV)
Indeed, for those who are taken to heaven to rule mankind here on earth, there is no sting of death because now those ones are granted immortal spirit life in heaven. But that is not where God placed humans in the beginning. He put them here on earth as mortal creatures to be caretakers of all that he had created. As Isaiah prophesied, 'everything that God intended at the start will take place'. (Isaiah 55:11)
So those who go to heaven will rule those who are deemed worthy of a resurrection. (Revelation 21:2-4) There will be no more death or pain or suffering as the former things will have passed away.
So when Christ told the Thief he would be with Him in paradise, He wasn't lying (even though his body remained dead in the grave)
43 And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. (Lk. 23:43 KJV)
So you err not knowing the power of God or His Holy Word.
Have you ever really thought about that scripture in context and how it fits in with the rest of the Bible?
In Greek, there are no capital letters or any punctuation, so when we see them in the Christian scriptures, it was the translators who put them there. Read the scripture again like it was Greek.
"jesus said to him truly i tell you today you will be with me in paradise."
Now, what if I was to put the comma after the word "today"?
"Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you today, you will be with Me in Paradise." (MEV)
Do you see that the placement of the comma changes the whole statement? So where should the comma go?
How does the Bible itself answer that question? Well, it says in Acts ch 1 that Jesus did not go to heaven for 40 days after his resurrection, and Jesus himself said that he would be in his tomb for three days and nights. He was resurrected on the third day. (Matthew 12:40) It is clear that Jesus did not go to heaven that day. Also, he did not promise the thief that he would be in heaven, but in "paradise". Where was the first paradise? It was in Eden.
Jesus made a covenant with his apostles on the night before his death and he said to them...
"You are the ones that have stuck with me in my trials; and I make a covenant with you, just as my Father has made a covenant with me, for a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones to judge the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Was the thief promised a position in heaven as one who had "stuck with Jesus in his trials"? Or rather, was Jesus promising him a resurrection back to the earth as one of the 'unrighteous' ones that he would resurrect?
It appears that the thief had a last minute change of heart because it says in Matthew and in Mark's account that both the criminals hung alongside Jesus had reproached him.
"In the same way also, the chief priests with the scribes were mocking him among themselves, saying: “Others he saved; himself he cannot save! 32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, now come down off the torture stake, so that we may see and believe.” Even those who were on stakes alongside him were reproaching him." (Mark 15:31-32; Matthew 27:44)
What we believe has to be backed up by all the scriptures, not just isolated verses.
Luke 23:43 does not say what you think it says....and neither does the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Please consider the evidence for yourself.