Mark 5:1-20

A Man with Evil Spirits

 ¹Jesus and his disciples crossed Lake Galilee and came to shore near the town of Gerasa. ²When he was getting out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit quickly ran to him ³from the graveyard where he had been living. No one was able to tie the man up anymore, not even with a chain. ⁴He had often been put in chains and leg irons, but he broke the chains and smashed the leg irons. No one could control him. ⁵Night and day he was in the graveyard or on the hills, yelling and cutting himself with stones.

    ⁶When the man saw Jesus in the distance, he ran up to him and knelt down. ⁷He shouted, "Jesus, Son of God in heaven, what do you want with me? Promise me in God's name that you won't torture me!" ⁸The man said this because Jesus had already told the evil spirit to come out of him.

    ⁹Jesus asked, "What is your name?"

   The man answered, "My name is Lots, because I have `lots' of evil spirits." ¹⁰He then begged Jesus not to send them away.

    ¹¹Over on the hillside a large herd of pigs was feeding. ¹²So the evil spirits begged Jesus, "Send us into those pigs! Let us go into them." ¹³Jesus let them go, and they went out of the man and into the pigs. The whole herd of about two thousand pigs rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

    ¹⁴The men taking care of the pigs ran to the town and the farms to spread the news. Then the people came out to see what had happened. ¹⁵When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had once been full of demons. He was sitting there with his clothes on and in his right mind, and they were terrified.

    ¹⁶Everyone who had seen what had happened told about the man and the pigs. ¹⁷Then the people started begging Jesus to leave their part of the country.

    ¹⁸When Jesus was getting into the boat, the man begged to go with him. ¹⁹But Jesus would not let him. Instead, he said, "Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how good he has been to you."

    ²⁰The man went away into the region near the ten cities known as Decapolis and began telling everyone how much Jesus had done for him. Everyone who heard what had happened was amazed.