Book of Common Prayer

He exhorts them to meekness and longsuffering, to love and peace. Everyone is to serve and edify the other with the gift that God has given him, to beware of strange doctrine, to lay aside the old life of greedy desires, and to walk in a new life.

4 I therefore, who am in bonds for the Lord’s sake, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling wherein you are called, ² in all humbleness of mind, and meekness and longsuffering, forbearing one another through love; ³ and to be diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, ⁴ being one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. ⁵ Let there be but one Lord, one faith, one baptism: ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in you all.

⁷ To every one of us grace is given according to the nature and scope of the gift of Christ. ⁸ Therefore he says: He ascended up on high, and has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men. ⁹ That he ascended, what does it mean but that he also descended first, into the lowest parts of the earth? ¹⁰ He who descended is the same also who ascended up, even above all heavens, to fulfil all things. ¹¹ And the very same made some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some shepherds, and some teachers, ¹² so that the saints may have all things necessary to work and minister for the edifying of the body of Christ, ¹³ until we every one (in the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God) grow up to be perfect in the maturity of the fullness of Christ; ¹⁴ so that we henceforth would no longer be children, wavering and carried with every wind of doctrine by the wiliness of men, and craftiness whereby they lay in wait for us, to deceive us.

¹⁵ But let us follow the truth in love, and in all things grow in him who is the head; that is to say, Christ. ¹⁶ In him all the body is coupled and knit together in every joint, and one ministers to another (according to the divine working, as every part has its role), and advances the body for the edifying of itself in love.

²⁸ When Jesus had come to the other side, into the country of the Gergesenes, two men possessed by devils met him, coming out from among the graves. They were out of measure fierce, so that no one could pass by that way. ²⁹ And behold, they cried out, saying, O Jesus, Son of God, what have we to do with you? Have you come here to torment us before the time be come?

³⁰ And a good way off from them there was a great herd of swine feeding. ³¹ Then the devils besought him, saying, If you cast us out, let us go our way into the herd of swine. ³² And he said to them, Go your ways. Then they went out and dispersed into the herd of swine. And behold, the whole herd of swine was carried with violence headlong into the sea, and perished in the water.

³³ Then the herdsmen fled, and went their ways into the town and told everything, and what had happened to the men possessed by the devils. ³⁴ And all the town came out and met Jesus. And when they saw him, they besought him to depart from their shores.