Remember Your Creator
The reader is told to remember the Creator in youth before the evil days come when pleasure fades and the lights of life grow dim. The Teacher then unfolds the weakening of the body and senses through domestic and natural imagery: trembling guardians, stooped strength, failing grinders and watchers, shut doors, thinning sound, fear of heights, whitening blossoms, faltering desire, and the approach of the mourners who mark mortality's advance.
R1emember your Creator in the days of your youth, 2before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is darkened, 3on the day the keepers of the house tremble 4when the doors to the street are shut 5when men fear the heights and dangers of the road,
The command to remember is repeated as life is pictured at the point of irreversible breaking: the silver cord snaps, the golden bowl shatters, the pitcher breaks, and the wheel is ruined at the cistern. At that point the dust returns to the earth and the spirit returns to God who gave it, and the Teacher's book-opening cry sounds again over the whole human condition: vanity of vanities, all is vanity.
6Remember Him before the silver cord is snapped 7before the dust returns to the ground from which it came 8“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher.