Ankerberg/Weldon say: "*Punishment,* kolasin, is translated *cutting off* [In the New World Translation] in order to escape the text's teaching or eternal punishment and to support their theology of annihilation of the wicked or conditional immortality."
They then provide the two differing translations:
"And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life." NWT (the Norwegian Church Bible of 1978/75 has "evig avskjaerelse" ["everlasting cutting off"] in the first case and "for frykt virker hemmende" ["because fear causes restraint"] in the
second case.)

"These will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life."
What nominal Christians hope this means is that *everlasting punishment* should be read as  *eternal torment in a fiery hell.* But is this actually the case?
The Greek word for *punishment/cutting off* is KOLASIS, which comes from the greek word KOLAZO which means to cut off or prune. The Emphatic Diaglott also uses the phrase "cutting off" and it gives the explanation that most versions confuse KOLASIN with BASINOS conveying the meaning of "torment". It goes on further to say that KOLAZOO "which signifies ,1. to cut off, as lopping off branches of trees, to prune, 2. To restrain, to repress.....3, to punish, to chastise. To cut off an individual from life, or society, or even to restrain, is esteemed as punishment." p.106
The Robertson's Word Pictures of the New Testament (A.T. Robertson) has this
to say:
"Eternal punishment (kolasin aiwnion). The word kolasin comes from kolazw, to mutilate or prune. Hence those who cling to the larger hope use this phrase to mean age-long pruning that ultimately leads to salvation of the goats, as disciplinary rather than penal."
Interestingly, The New Testament in Modern English, By Ferrar Fenton, and Rotherham's Emphasized Version has "into a long correction."

 Those who own a copy of Young’s Analytical Concordance will see from it (page 995) that
the definition of the word kolasis is "pruning, restraining, restraint."
The Classic Greek Dictionary - Sixteenth Edition 1962, by George Ricker Berry, Ph D
The Late Professor of Semitic Languages at Colgate University and University of Chicago
had, "kolazw - To prune, retrench: ... metaph. ... confine: then to chastise, correct, punish."
At http://bible.crosswalk.com/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=2849&version=nas
"Kolazo - from kolos (dwarf)
Definition
              1. to lop or prune, as trees and wings
              2. to curb, check, restrain
              3. to chastise, correct, punishment
              4. to cause to be punished

Here are the glosses given for KOLAZW in Liddel and Scott:

               1) "check" or "chastise" (the desires); passive: "to be corrected";
               "chastened." 2) "chastise, punish" (someone), "use" your proud words "in
               reproving them"; middle: "get" a person "punished"; passive: "to be
               punished"; of divine "retribution"; "suffer injury." 3) of a drastic method
               of checking the growth of the almond-tree. 4) passive: "to be badly in need
               of."

               Here are the glosses for KOLASIS

               1) "checking the growth of" trees, especially almond trees. 2)
               chastisement, correction"; of divine "retribution.">>

Vine's has "kolazo (2849) primarily denotes 'to curtail, prune, dock'"
Thayer's has "1. prop. to lop, prune, as trees, wings."

We see from the lexical evidence that kolazo means  "to Prune or to lop" is one of the original primary meanings of the Greek word.

Why are we so overly vengeful, when we do indeed know that the unrighteous will not get any reward; they will indeed get "eternal punishment" in the sense that "These will suffer the *punishment of eternal destruction*" (NRSV) as 2 Thessalonians 1:9.

Commenting on this, Samuele Bacchiocchi, Ph. D. has this to say:

"Eternal Punishment." Christ's solemn declaration: "They will go away into eternal
punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt 25:46) is generally regarded as the clearest
proof of the conscious suffering the lost will endure for all eternity. Is this the only legitimate
interpretation of the text? John Stott rightly answers: "No, that is to read into the text what is not
necessarily there. What Jesus said is that both the life and the punishment would be eternal, but
he did not in that passage define the nature of either. Because he elsewhere spoke of eternal life
as a conscious enjoyment of God (John 17:3), it does not follow that eternal punishment must be
a conscious experience of pain at the hand of God. On the contrary, although declaring both to be
eternal, Jesus is contrasting the two destinies: the more unlike they are, the better."34

Traditionalists read "eternal punishment" as "eternal punishing," but this is not the meaning of
the phrase. As Basil Atkinson keenly observes, "When the adjective aionios meaning
'everlasting' is used in Greek with nouns of action it has reference to the result of the action, not
the process. Thus the phrase 'everlasting punishment' is comparable to 'everlasting redemption'
and 'everlasting salvation,' both Scriptural phrases. No one supposes that we are being
redeemed or being saved forever. We were redeemed and saved once for all by Christ with
eternal results. In the same way the lost will not be passing through a process of punishment for
ever but will be punished once and for all with eternal results. On the other hand the noun 'life'
is not a noun of action, but a noun expressing a state. Thus the life itself is eternal."35

A fitting example to support this conclusion is found in 2 Thessalonians 1:9, where Paul,
speaking of those who reject the Gospel, says: "They shall suffer the punishment of eternal
destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might." It is
evident that the destruction of the wicked cannot be eternal in its duration, because it is difficult
to imagine an eternal, inconclusive process of destruction. Destruction presupposes annihilation.
The destruction of the wicked is eternal–aionios, not because the process of destruction
continues forever, but because the results are permanent. In the same way, the "eternal
punishment" of Matthew 25:46 is eternal because its results are permanent. It is a punishment
that results in their eternal destruction or annihilation."
http://www.intowww.org/bible/death6.htm
He goes on to say,
"The Meaning of "Punishment." Note should also be taken of the word "punishment" used to
translate the Greek word kolasis. A glance at Moulton and Milligan's Vocabulary of the Greek
Testament shows that the word was used at that time with the meaning of "pruning" or "cutting
down" of dead wood. If this is its meaning here, it reflects the frequent Old Testament phrase
*shall be cut off from his people*"
Let us take a look at those scriptures:
Gen 17:14, "And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that soul shall be cut off from his people. He hath broken my covenant."
Ex 30:33, 38, "Whosoever compoundeth any like it, or whosoever putteth any of it upon a stranger, he shall be cut off from his people...Whosoever shall make like unto that, to smell thereof, he shall be cut off from his people."
Lev 7:20, 21, 25, 27, "But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings, that pertain unto Jehovah, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from his people... And when any one shall touch any unclean thing, the uncleanness of man, or an unclean beast, or any unclean abomination, and eat of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace-offerings, which pertain unto Jehovah, that soul shall be cut off from his people... For whosoever eateth the fat of the beast, of which men offer an offering made by fire unto Jehovah, even the soul that eateth it shall be cut off from his people...Whosoever it be that eateth any blood, that soul shall be cut off from his people."
Num 9:13. "But the man that is clean, and is not on a journey, and forbeareth to keep the passover, that soul shall be cut off from his people."
see also Ex 9:15; 12:15, 19; 31:14; Lev 17:4, 9, 14; 18:29; 19:8; 20:17, 18; 22:3; 23:29; Num 15:30, 31; 19:13, 20; Deut 12:29; 19:1; 2Sam 7:9 etc
Hence, is it any wonder that Bible translators choose the alternative reading with the best evidence internally, "And these will go into agelasting [cutting off] [restraint], but the righteous into agelasting life." 21st Century NT
Interestingly, we read in this scripture what should be the antithesis of everlasting life, which is of course, everlasting death (not some medieval notion of living souls suffering torment). Biblically, the antithesis of life is...death (not eternal torment). See Num 35:31; Deut 30:15, 19; Jg 16:30; 2Sam 15:21; Ps 78:50; Prov 12:28; 13:14; 14:27; 18:21; Jer 8:3; 21:8; 52:34; Jn 5:24; Rom 5:10, 17, 21; 6:4, 10; 7:10; 8:6, 38, 1Cor 3:22; 2Cor 2:16; 4:11,12; Php 1:20; 1Jn 3:14;
5:16; Rev 2:10; 12:11.
The Bible has always held out one hope to the opposite of another:
Prov 11: 19 He that is stedfast in righteousness shall attain unto life; And he that pursueth evil
doeth it to his own death.
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.