Better is it that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay.
All Commentaries on Ecclesiastes 5:5 Go To Ecclesiastes 5
John Cassian
AD 435
For as unbounded glory hereafter is promised to those who faithfully serve God and cleave to him according to the rule of this system, so the severest penalties are in store for those who have carried it out carelessly and coldly and have failed to show to him fruits of holiness corresponding to what they professed or what they were believed by people to be. For “it is better,” as Scripture says, “that one should not vow rather than to vow and not pay”; and “Cursed is he that does the work of the Lord carelessly.”
