Solomon brings his search to its end by calling the reader to remember his Creator in the days of youth, before the evil days come and the aged body fails, when the keepers of the house tremble, the grinders cease, the doors are shut, and desire fails as man goes to his long home. He pictures death as the silver cord loosed and the golden bowl broken, when the dust returns to the earth as it was and the spirit returns to God who gave it, and he sounds once more his refrain, 'Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.' Then, as one wise Preacher who taught the people and sought out acceptable words like well-fastened goads, he sets down the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man, since God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil. The ending gathers the book's long argument into its one true answer, that the meaning lost under the sun is found in reverent obedience to God, whose final judgment the gospel later shows is met in Christ, the wisdom and righteousness of God.