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157. If one would regard oneself as dear,
One would guard oneself with diligence.
The wise one would look after [himself]
During any one of the [night’s] three watches.
158. First, one would get oneself
Established in what is proper;
Then one would advise another.
[Thus] the wise one would not suffer.
159. One would oneself so do
As one advises another.
Then it is the restrained one who would restrain.
For, truly, it is the self that is hard to restrain.
160. Oneself indeed is patron of oneself.
Who else indeed could be one’s patron?
With oneself well restrained,
One gets a patron hard to get.
161. The wrong done by oneself
Is born of oneself, is produced in oneself.
It grinds one deficient in wisdom
As a diamond grinds a rock-gem.
162. Whose extreme unvirtue overspreads [him],
Like the maluva creeper a sala tree,
He does to himself,
Just as a foe wishes [to do] to him.
163. Easy to do are things not good
And those harmful for oneself.
But what is beneficial and good,
Is exceedingly difficult to do.
164. Who is deficient in wisdom,
Because of detrimental view,
Obstructs the instruction of the Arahants,
The Noble Ones who live dhamma;
For one’s own destruction one ripens,
Like the fruits of a reed.
165. By oneself is wrong done,
By oneself is one defiled.
By oneself wrong is not done,
By oneself, surely, is one cleansed.
One cannot purify another;
Purity and impurity are in oneself [alone].
166. One would not abandon one’s own purpose
Because of the purpose of another, even though great,
Having well understood one’s own purpose,
One would be intent on the true purpose.