Mark 5:1-20

Living Bible

5 ^1-2 When they arrived at the other side of the lake, a demon-possessed man ran out from a graveyard, just as Jesus was climbing from the boat.

^3-4 This man lived among the gravestones and had such strength that whenever he was put into handcuffs and shackles—as he often was—he snapped the handcuffs from his wrists and smashed the shackles and walked away. No one was strong enough to control him. ⁵ All day long and through the night he would wander among the tombs and in the wild hills, screaming and cutting himself with sharp pieces of stone.

⁶ When Jesus was still far out on the water, the man had seen him and had run to meet him, and fell down before him.

^7-8 Then Jesus spoke to the demon within the man and said, “Come out, you evil spirit.”

It gave a terrible scream, shrieking, “What are you going to do to me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? For God’s sake, don’t torture me!”

⁹ “What is your name?” Jesus asked, and the demon replied, “Legion, for there are many of us here within this man.”

¹⁰ Then the demons begged him again and again not to send them to some distant land.

¹¹ Now as it happened there was a huge herd of hogs rooting around on the hill above the lake. ¹² “Send us into those hogs,” the demons begged.

¹³ And Jesus gave them permission. Then the evil spirits came out of the man and entered the hogs, and the entire herd plunged down the steep hillside into the lake and drowned.

¹⁴ The herdsmen fled to the nearby towns and countryside, spreading the news as they ran. Everyone rushed out to see for themselves. ¹⁵ And a large crowd soon gathered where Jesus was; but as they saw the man sitting there, fully clothed and perfectly sane, they were frightened. ¹⁶ Those who saw what happened were telling everyone about it, ¹⁷ and the crowd began pleading with Jesus to go away and leave them alone! ¹⁸ So he got back into the boat. The man who had been possessed by the demons begged Jesus to let him go along. ¹⁹ But Jesus said no.

“Go home to your friends,” he told him, “and tell them what wonderful things God has done for you; and how merciful he has been.”

²⁰ So the man started off to visit the Ten Towns^[a] of that region and began to tell everyone about the great things Jesus had done for him; and they were awestruck by his story.