Gallinger sets out to do two things: he translates the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, which he finds thematically similar to their religious texts, into the High Tongue.

—And the truly sacred names of God are blasphemous things to speak!He discovers that the Martian religion is more complicated than he had originally realized, as is his role in fulfilling prophecy.

It has been prophesied that a stranger will "go shod in the temple", breaking in without removing all unclean items, restoring life to the Martian race and bringing something new.

"A Rose for Ecclesiastes" has been anthologized several times, including in Isaac Asimov Presents the Great SF Stories #25 (edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg), The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, and Other Stories, and Science Fiction: The Science Fiction Research Association Anthology (edited by Patricia S. Warrick, Charles Waugh, and Martin H. Greenberg).

[5] The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Literature in English declares the story "rewrote the cliches of science fiction into augurs of renewal".

[6] Theodore Sturgeon called the story "one of the most beautifully written, skillfully composed and passionately expressed works of art to appear anywhere, ever.