Ecclesiastes 12:13 — Bible Verse Meaning & Context

Ecclesiastes 12:13 reads: "This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." — from the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes (Wisdom literature). The full verse is shown above with both the World English Bible (WEB) and King James Version (KJV) translations side by side.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 is in the book of Ecclesiastes, traditionally attributed to Solomon (traditional) and written around c. 935 BC. Ecclesiastes is wisdom literature in the Old Testament, originally addressed to Israel under the monarchy. Best known for "vanity of vanities, all is vanity" and "a time for everything".

Ecclesiastes 12:13 is primarily a Bible verse about Wisdom. Within Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiastes is the searching meditation of "the Preacher" who tried every pleasure, project, and pursuit "under the sun" and found them all hevel — vapour, breath, fleeting. Read the full passage above with surrounding context.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 in the World English Bible (WEB) reads: "This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.". The King James Version (KJV) reads: "Let us hear8085 the conclusion5490 of the whole matter1697: Fear3372 God430, and keep8104 his commandments4687: for this is the whole duty of man120. Let: or, The end of the matter, even all that hath been heard, is". The WEB is a modern public-domain translation that updates the KJV's 1611 English while keeping a similar formal-equivalence style. Both render the same underlying Greek or Hebrew text.

Ecclesiastes 12:13 is 25 words in the WEB translation (122 characters), broken into 5 clauses. It is a longer verse, often broken into smaller phrases for memorisation. Estimated reading time is about 8 seconds.

To memorise Ecclesiastes 12:13, split it into its 5 natural clauses and learn one at a time. Repeat the full verse out loud five times, then write it from memory. Saving the verse as a photo wallpaper using our verse image studio helps daily review — the visual association with a memorable background dramatically improves recall.

Ecclesiastes is the searching meditation of "the Preacher" who tried every pleasure, project, and pursuit "under the sun" and found them all hevel — vapour, breath, fleeting. The book's honest realism about death, injustice, and limit pushes the reader toward its closing conclusion: "Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man" (12:13). Ecclesiastes 12:13 sits within this larger story — Ecclesiastes as a whole emphasises vanity, meaning, time.

Many readers use Ecclesiastes 12:13 as a daily reminder verse — saving it as a phone wallpaper, sharing it on Pinterest, or memorising it for prayer. The verse studio on this page lets you download Ecclesiastes 12:13 on 52 different backgrounds for free. Pair the verse with the surrounding chapter context shown above to understand its full meaning before applying it.