Job 21 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

Then Job answered:

Listen. Actually listen to what I say. Let that be the comfort you give me.

Put up with me while I speak. And once I have finished, go ahead and mock.

Is it a man I am arguing with? Then why shouldn't I be out of patience?

Turn and look at me, and be horrified. Put your hand over your mouth.

When I let myself remember it, I go cold, and my whole body starts shaking.

Why do the guilty go on living, growing old, getting stronger the whole way?

Their children are settled and secure right beside them. Their grandchildren grow up where they can watch.

Their houses are at peace, with nothing to be afraid of. God's stick never comes down on them.

Their bull breeds and never misses. Their cow drops her calf and never loses one.

They turn their little ones loose like a flock of lambs, and their children go out dancing.

They sing over the drum and the harp and light up at the sound of the pipe.

They spend out their days with everything good in them, and go down to the world of the dead in one quiet moment.

And these are the men who say to God, "Leave us alone. We have no interest in knowing how you do things."

"Who is the Almighty, that we should work for him? What do we get out of begging him for anything?"

Look at it — the good life they have is not held in their own hands. And the way the guilty think is nowhere near me.

So how often is the lamp of the guilty actually snuffed out? How often does their disaster fall on them? How often does God deal out pain in his anger?

How often are they straw in the wind, chaff the storm gets away with in the night?

"God saves up a man's guilt for his children," you say. Let him pay the man himself. Let him find out what it feels like.

Let his own eyes watch himself go down. Let him drink the anger of the Almighty straight.

Because what does he care about his household once he is gone, when the count of his months has been cut off?

Can anyone teach God anything? He is the one who passes judgment on the powers above.

One man dies with all his strength still on him, fully at ease, everything settled and calm.

His body heavy with milk and fat, the marrow of his bones still wet.

Another man dies with bitterness in his throat, having never once tasted anything good.

They lie down side by side in the dust, and the same worms cover them both.

I know exactly what you are thinking, and the schemes you are working up to use against me.

Because you keep asking, "So where is the big man's house now? Where is the tent the guilty were living in?"

Have you never once asked the people who travel the roads? Will you not take the evidence they bring back —

that the evil man is the one held back on the day of disaster, led out safe on the day the fury breaks?

Who tells him to his face what he is? Who makes him pay for anything he has done?

And when he is carried out to the graveyard, someone stays behind to keep watch over the tomb.

The soft dirt of the valley lies sweet on him. Everyone alive files along behind him, and the crowd that went ahead of him cannot be counted.

So how are you going to comfort me with a mouthful of air? Every answer you have left is a betrayal.