There is a surprise here, as J. abruptly drops examples of misguided prayers and moves on to his conclusion, with a silly question by an interlocutor in line 346 that suddenly breaks in on the poet's voice and the grim picture in 345. The satirist thus gets our attention; and he keeps it, because this is only the first in a series of surprises. First of all, he tells us that instead of praying we should leave it to the gods to decide what is good for us, now presenting them with disturbing inconsistency as essentially benevolent rather than the malicious jokers of 7f. and 111. Then he does allow us to supplicate heaven after all, and in fact gives a long list of things that we can ask for. But he goes on saying that we don't need to request them at all, as we can get them by our own efforts. And he concludes with a totally unexpected assault on Fortune.

So this is a lively conclusion. It is also an appropriately powerful ending for what has, so far, been a powerful poem. It is amusing, interesting and provocative, and has real bite. We are, as it were, eavesdropping on an exchange between the poet and a slow-witted reader, and we are entertained by J.'s mockery and digs at him. But we can take a message for ourselves too, because what the satirist has to say to one is relevant for all his readers (and, so as not to alienate them, his barbs are directed at the interlocutor only, and he includes the disarming nos (‘we/us’) in lines 348, 350 and 365f., to align himself with them as another inferior mortal). He takes the whole issue of prayer much further here. After outlining various entreaties that should not be made in the previous sections, he now progresses to what we can ask for, listing at 356ff. various things which he believes will lead to our happiness. But he also undermines prayer, by saying that we should leave it to the gods themselves to give us what is best for us without directing ill-judged petitions at them (347ff.), by poking fun at the offerings that accompany requests to heaven (355) and by claiming that we can secure such blessings ourselves without recourse to deities (363f.).