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I. PROFITABLE LABOUR. "In all labour there is profit." The word "all" here of course must be taken with limitation. Ill-directed labour is not profitable.

1. Labour is profitable to our physical health.

2. Labour is profitable to our character. It conduces to force of thought, energy of will, power of endurance, capacity of application.

3. Labour is profitable to our social comforts. By labour, honest, well-directed labour, man gets not only the necessities, but the comforts, the luxuries, the elegances, and the elevated positions of life. There is no true labour that is vain.

II. IMPOVERISHING TALK. "The talk of the lips tendeth only to penury." All talk does not tend to penury. There is a talk that is profitable. The talk of the preacher, the lecturer, the statesman, the barrister, more often tend to affluence than to penury. Sir Walter Raleigh says, "He that is lavish in words is a niggard indeed. The shuttle, the needle, the spade, the brush, the chisel, all are still but the tongue."

III. DIGNIFYING WEALTH. "The crown of the wise is their riches." The idea is, that a wise man would so use his wealth that it will become a crown to him. By using it to promote his own mental and spiritual cultivation, and to ameliorate the woes and to augment the happiness of the world, his wealth gives him a diadem more lustrous far than all the diamond crowns of kings. But the foolishness of fools is folly. This looked at antithetically means that the wealth of a fool adds no dignity to his character.

(D. Thomas, D.D.)

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KJV: In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.

WEB: In all hard work there is profit, but the talk of the lips leads only to poverty.