Mark 5:1-20

Evangelical Heritage Version

A Demon-Possessed Man and a Herd of Pigs

5 They went to the other side of the sea, into the region of the Gerasenes.^{[a] 2} As soon as Jesus stepped out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs to meet him. ³ The man lived in the tombs. Nobody could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. ⁴ For he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he pulled the chains apart and broke the shackles in pieces. Nobody had the strength to subdue him. ⁵ Night and day, in the tombs and in the mountains, he was constantly crying out and cutting himself with stones. ⁶ When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down in front of him. ⁷ He cried out with a loud voice, “What do I have to do with you, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you to swear by God not to torment me.” ⁸ For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!”

⁹ Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“My name is Legion,” he replied, “because we are many.” ¹⁰ He begged Jesus repeatedly that he would not send them out of the region.

¹¹ There was a large herd of pigs there feeding on the hillside. ¹² The demons begged him, “Send us to the pigs so we may enter them.”

¹³ Jesus gave them permission. The unclean spirits went out and entered the pigs. Then the herd of about two thousand pigs rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned. ¹⁴ Those who were feeding the pigs ran and reported this in the city and the countryside.

People came to see what had happened. ¹⁵ When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. ¹⁶ Those who had seen it described for these people what had happened to the demon-possessed man, and they told them about the pigs. ¹⁷ They began to plead with Jesus to leave their region.

¹⁸ As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to stay with Jesus. ¹⁹ But Jesus would not let him. Instead, he told him, “Go home to your people, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how he had mercy on you.”

²⁰ The man left and began to proclaim in the Decapolis everything Jesus had done for him. And everyone was amazed.