"5 Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. 2 Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few. 3 For a dream comes with much busyness, and a fool's voice with many words.
4 When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. 5 It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. 6 Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? 7 For when dreams increase and words grow many, there is vanity; but God is the one you must fear."
Ecclesiastes 5:1-7
Here are two further comments on these verses, the first from the Gilcomston Notes, by W. Still: 'These verses have many applications, but in general we should remember that even if we babble before God, and acknowledge either in word or in profession that we are speaking to God, God will take us at our word. Many a one has brought a heap of trouble upon himself by professing or protesting too much before God. Even when we speak soberly in an abandon of loving consecration, God will take us at our word and may carry our word to a grimmer extreme than we ever dreamt of. Two Christian lovers gave themselves singularly to God at a Convention, naturally expecting God to call them to service, but it was to sacrifice He called them: one to die, the other to be left alone. We often dream dreams before God and ask God to realise them for us. This is dangerous: keep within bounds! If we lived less in the worlds of our silly dreams and more in the world of daily life, we would be more content, and more fit for the work He has for us to do now'.
The second comment is by Deitrich Bonhoeffer: 'Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening; but he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon no longer be listening to God either. He will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God, too. The is the beginning of the death of the spiritual life, and in the end there is nothing left but spiritual chatter and clerical condescension arranged in pious words'.
That is enough food for thought, is it not, for one day!