Memorize Ecclesiastes 3:1

English Standard Version

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

Ecclesiastes 3:1, English Standard Version

14 words · about five minutes a day for five days ·

Start memorizing Ecclesiastes 3:1 →

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The five steps

  1. Meet the verse. Hear it read aloud, then echo it phrase by phrase, with a small hand motion for each phrase.
  2. Fill the gaps. About a third of the words become blanks. Say it out loud, supplying them; peek if you need to, trying is the point.
  3. Half hidden. Most of the words are gone now. Say it once more at bedtime; sleep locks it in overnight.
  4. First letters. Every word reduced to its first letter. Recite it with only those to guide you.
  5. All by yourself. Nothing but the reference. One confident recite, then it goes into your Verse Book to come back for review.

Each step makes a fine "tonight's step" spread over five days, and nothing is locked: the numbered dots jump anywhere. How to memorize Bible verses walks through the whole method.

Why it works

Three of the most replicated findings in learning science: retrieval practice (pulling a word from memory strengthens it more than rereading it), spacing (short tries on separate days beat one long one), and sleep (a verse said at bedtime is consolidated overnight). The blanks grow in stages so that every try is hard enough to count and never so hard that you give up.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 in context

There is an appointed time for every human activity, from birth and planting to mourning and peace. God makes everything fitting in its time and places eternity in human hearts, yet people cannot comprehend the whole. Justice, joy, and mortality remain together.

Read Ecclesiastes 3:1 in its chapter · Ecclesiastes 3, in the English Standard Version.

Verses that keep it company

In other translations

BSB · Berean Standard BibleKJV · King James VersionNET · New English TranslationWEB · World English BibleASV · American Standard (1901)YLT · Young's Literal Translation

The reference is the same in every one; the path lets you switch mid-way, and pasting any wording you like works too.

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