Bad Friends
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Job had endured great suffering at the hand of Satan. He had lost everything and his wife had turned on him as well. Job’s friends were not much better. They told Job time and again that he needed to repent. They told Job that he was going through the suffering because of his own sins. Yet Job knew different.
At the end of Job, he gets some vindication. Job is told that he did what was right and God blessed him. God then told Job’s friends that they were wrong. God told them to take sacrifices to Job and offer those sacrifices. Then they were to ask Job to pray for them that they might be forgiven. Their only hope for forgiveness was through the one man that they thought was ungodly and deserving of great suffering.
We might suffer in the present, but in the end God will make it right.
Job 42:2-8
[2] “I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
[3] ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
[4] ‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.’
[5] I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
[6] therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
[7] After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My anger burns against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. [8] Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and offer up a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.”
