Wickedness
This chapter is about small deeds adding up. It tells the reader to hurry to do good and not to let a bad deed become a habit, because piling up wrong is suffering and piling up good is joyful. Its central image is a pot filled drop by drop: the fool fills with wickedness bit by bit, and the attentive fill with goodness the same way. Other verses say that wrong done to a blameless person blows back like dust thrown into the wind, and that there is nowhere on earth, not sky, sea or mountain cleft, where you can hide from your own deeds or from death.
A note on these verses. Verse 126 states that evildoers go to hell, the virtuous to heaven, and the undefiled are “fully extinguished”; verses 119–120 describe deeds ripening later.
Translated by Bhikkhu Sujato · public domain (CC0) · about 2 min · on SuttaCentral
116Rush to do good,shield your mind from evil;for when you’re slow to do good,your thoughts delight in wickedness.
117If you do something bad,don’t do it again and again,don’t set your heart on it,for piling up evil is suffering.
118If you do something good,do it again and again,set your heart on it,for piling up goodness is joyful.
119Even the wicked see good things,so long as their wickedness has not ripened.But as soon as that wickedness ripens,then the wicked see wicked things.
120Even the good see wicked things,so long as their goodness has not ripened.But as soon as that goodness ripens,then the good see good things.
121Think not lightly of evil,that it won’t come back to you.The pot is filled with waterfalling drop by drop;the fool is filled with wickednesspiled up bit by bit.
122Think not lightly of goodness,that it won’t come back to you.The pot is filled with waterfalling drop by drop;the attentive one is filled with goodnesspiled up bit by bit.
123Avoid wickedness,as a merchant with rich cargo and small escortwould avoid a dangerous road,or one who loves life would avoid drinking poison.
124You can carry poison in your handif it has no wound,for poison does not infect without a wound;nothing bad happens unless you do bad.
125Whoever wrongs a man who has done no wrong,a pure man who has not a blemish,the evil backfires on the fool,like fine dust thrown upwind.
126Some are born in a womb;evildoers go to hell;the virtuous go to heaven;the undefiled are fully extinguished.
127Not in midair, nor mid-ocean,nor hiding in a mountain cleft;you’ll find no place on the planetto escape your wicked deeds.
128Not in midair, nor mid-ocean,nor hiding in a mountain cleft;you’ll find no place on the planetwhere you won’t be vanquished by death.