We need to close Job out before we transition in our reading plan back to the Psalms, Book 2, beginning with Psalm 42. Job 42 opens with Job repenting:

Then Job answered the LORD and said: “I know that You can do everything, And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak; You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’ “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, But now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42.1 – 6, NKJV)

Job repents of challenging God, but God holds his friends responsible for their Santa Claus Theology:

And so it was, after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is aroused against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has. Now therefore, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and My servant Job shall pray for you. For I will accept him, lest I deal with you according to your folly; because you have not spoken of Me what is right, as My servant Job has.” (Job 42.7, 8, NKJV)

Then after Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar offer their sacrifices, Job prayed for his friends…

So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the LORD commanded them; for the LORD had accepted Job. And the LORD restored Job’s losses when he prayed for his friends. Indeed the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before. (Job 42.9, 10, NKJV)

It’s probably non-trivial that Job prayed for his friends. He probably could have been tempted to secretly wish they would experience what he had experienced!

But it’s part of his identity as a “Job 31 man” that he didn’t do that:

If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted myself up when evil found him (Indeed I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking for a curse on his soul)… (Job 31.29, 30, NKJV)

The story ends:

Now the LORD blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand yoke of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters…In all the land were found no women so beautiful as the daughters of Job; and their father gave them an inheritance among their brothers. After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children and grandchildren for four generations. So Job died, old and full of days. (Job 42.12 – 17, NKJV)

As I quoted when commenting on Psalm 37:

Everything will be alright in the end so if it is not alright it is not the end.
― Sonny Kapoor, Hotel Manager, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel