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Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

34. THE SHEPHERD AND THE WOLF CUBS
Perry 209 (Chambry 313 *)

A shepherd found some wolf cubs and he brought them up, thinking that the fully grown wolves would both guard his flock and steal other people's sheep to bring back to his sheepfold. But when the cubs grew up, the first thing they did was to destroy the man's own flock. The man groaned and said, 'It serves me right! Why didn't I kill them when they were little?'
The story shows that when people harbor a criminal they become his first victims without even realizing it.

Note: Compare the Greek proverb 'it is better not to raise a lion cub' (e.g., Aristophanes, Frogs 1431; the disastrous results of raising such a cub are described in Aeschylus, Agamemnon 717ff.).

Source: Aesop's Fables. A new translation by Laura Gibbs. Oxford University Press (World's Classics): Oxford, 2002.
NOTE: New cover, with new ISBN, published in 2008; contents of book unchanged.