Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

All People Will Learn About God

65 “I helped people who had not come to me for advice. Those who found me were not looking for me.^[a] I spoke to a nation that does not use my name. I said, ‘Here I am! Here I am!’

² “All day long I stood ready to accept those who turned against me. But they kept doing whatever they wanted to do, and all they did was wrong. ³ They keep doing things, right in front of me, that make me angry. They offer sacrifices and burn incense in their special gardens.^{[b] 4} They sit among the graves, waiting to get messages from the dead. They eat the meat of pigs, and their pots are full of soup made from unclean meat. ⁵ But they tell others, ‘Don’t come near me! Don’t touch me because I am holy!’ They are like smoke in my eyes, and their fire burns all the time.”

Israel Must Be Punished

⁶ “Look, here is a letter that lists all your sins. I will not be quiet until I pay you back for these sins. I will do it by punishing you. ⁷ I, the Lord, am doing this because of your sins and the sins of your ancestors. They did these sins when they burned incense in the mountains. They shamed me on those hills, and I punished them first.”

⁸ The Lord says, “When there is new wine in the grapes, people squeeze out the wine. But they don’t completely destroy the grapes because the grapes can still be used. I will do the same thing to my servants. I will not destroy them completely. ⁹ I will keep some of the people of Jacob. Some of the people of Judah will get my mountains. I will choose the people who will get the land. My servants will live there.

²³ Before this faith came, the law held us as prisoners. We had no freedom until God showed us the way of faith that was coming. ²⁴ I mean the law was the guardian in charge of us until Christ came. After he came, we could be made right with God through faith. ²⁵ Now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law to be our guardian.

^26-27 You were all baptized into Christ, and so you were all clothed with Christ. This shows that you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. ²⁸ Now, in Christ, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or free, male or female. You are all the same in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ You belong to Christ, so you are Abraham’s descendants. You get all of God’s blessings because of the promise that God made to Abraham.

Jesus Frees a Man From Evil Spirits^(A)

²⁶ Jesus and his followers sailed on across the lake. They sailed to the area where the Gerasene people live, across from Galilee. ²⁷ When Jesus got out of the boat, a man from that town came to him. This man had demons inside him. For a long time he had worn no clothes. He did not live in a house but in the caves where the dead are buried.

^28-29 The demon inside the man had often seized him, and he had been put in jail with his hands and feet in chains. But he would always break the chains. The demon inside him would force him to go out to the places where no one lived. Jesus commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. When the man saw Jesus, he fell down before him, shouting loudly, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Please, don’t punish me!”

³⁰ Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

The man answered, “Legion.”^[a] (He said his name was “Legion” because many demons had gone into him.) ³¹ The demons begged Jesus not to send them into the bottomless pit.^{[b] 32} On that hill there was a big herd of pigs eating. The demons begged Jesus to allow them to go into the pigs. So he allowed them to do this. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and went into the pigs. The herd of pigs ran down the hill into the lake, and all were drowned.

³⁴ The men who were caring for the pigs ran away and told the story in the fields and in the town. ³⁵ People went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man sitting there at the feet of Jesus. The man had clothes on and was in his right mind again; the demons were gone. This made the people afraid. ³⁶ The men who saw these things happen told the others all about how Jesus made the man well. ³⁷ All those who lived in the area around Gerasa asked Jesus to go away because they were afraid.

So Jesus got into the boat to go back to Galilee. ³⁸ The man he had healed begged to go with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “Go back home and tell people what God did for you.”

So the man went all over town telling what Jesus had done for him.