This paper demonstrates that the logic of debt is founded on an infinite task, amounting to a process of continual repayment with never an end in sight. This infinite task expresses as its inner contradiction: “borrow, spend, and be guilty.” Through the formula “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of…”, inscribed on every banknote in the UK, I show how the juridico-political apparatuses function to maintain the force of the utterance. Through Agamben’s archeology of the oath, I show how the ‘I promise’ functions as a performative speech act, that ultimately acts as a commandment, or an order-word. Therefore, the notion of debt can only be conceptualised as that which is constituted by the force of language, which is simultaneously reliant on a secondary threat of physical force in order to maintain the primary force of the utterance. The incorporeal transformation that results from this renders each of us perpetually indebted persons.