1 I swear to you, my children, but I swear not by any oath, neither by heaven nor by earth, nor by any other creature which God created. 2 The Lord said: There is no oath in me, nor injustice, but truth. 3 If there is no truth in men, let them swear by the words, Yea, yea, or else, Nay, nay. 4 And I swear to you, yea, yea, that there has been no man in his mother’s womb, (but that) already before, even to each one there is a place prepared for the repose of that soul, and a measure fixed how much it is intended that a man be tried in this world. 5 Yea, children, deceive not yourselves, for there has been previously prepared a place for every soul of man.

33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not break an oath, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ 34 But I say to you, do not take oaths at all—not by heaven, because it is the throne of God, 35 not by earth because it is his footstool, and not by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King. 36 Do not take an oath by your head because you are not able to make one hair white or black. 37 Let your word be ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no.’ More than this is from the evil one.