The great value of a PROMISE

"[1] DO not ever promise a person something you then cannot or – even worse – do not wish to keep for whatever reasons, if you truly want to become children of God. In truth, I tell you, the worst thing is a promise that is not kept.
[2] For the one who is angry sins within himself and harms first himself. Who practices lewdness buries his soul in the judgment of the flesh and again harms himself, but the evil of evils is the lie.
[3] If you have promised to do something for a person and circumstances arise that make it impossible for you to keep your promise, do go to him without delay and tell him honestly what has happened to you, so that he can help himself at the proper time in some other way to overcome some difficulty.
[4] But woe betide everyone who makes promises and does not keep them, even if he could do so, for thereby he causes far-reaching trouble. The one who expected his help cannot fulfill his duty, and the hands of those who relied on him are tied, and thus such a broken promise can cause greatest embarrassment and distress to thousands. Therefore, a promise that is not kept is the thing most opposed to the love of one’s neighbor and, therefore, the greatest of evils.
[5] It is better to have a hard heart because that will not raise any deceptive hopes with anyone. One knows that nothing can be expected of a hard-hearted person and, therefore, other means are sought for the preservation of the necessary order. But if someone expects something that was promised to him, he abstains from seeking other ways and means, and when the time comes that the business of the one expecting help has to be attended to and the one who promised him lets him down and does not tell him in advance that for some reason, which must of course be absolutely true, he will not be able to keep his promise, such promiser is like Satan who from the very beginning made mankind brilliant promises through his prophets none of which he has ever kept, thereby plunging numerous people into misery.
[6] Therefore, beware above all of such promises which you cannot keep and, even worse, for whatever reasons do not want to keep, for that is the attitude of the chief of devils.
[7] Be loving and righteous in all things, for in the Father’s Kingdom the righteous once shall shine as the sun at noon."
(The Great Gospel of John through Jakob Lorber, Book 2, chap. 98)