Luke 8:22–37

WIND AND WAVES OBEY JESUS

²²One day he and his disciples got into a boat,^m and he told them, “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.”ⁿ So they set out, ²³and as they were sailing he fell asleep. Then a fierce windstorm came down on the lake; they were being swamped and were in danger. ²⁴They came and woke him up, saying, “Master, Master, we’re going to die!”

Then he got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves. So they ceased, and there was a calm.^{o 25}He said to them, “Where is your faith?”

They were fearful and amazed, asking one another, “Who then is this?^p He commands even the winds and the waves, and they obey him!”

DEMONS DRIVEN OUT BY JESUS

²⁶Then they sailed to the region of the Gerasenes,^Bq which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷When he got out on land, a demon-possessed man from the town met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes and did not stay in a house but in the tombs. ²⁸When he saw Jesus, he cried out,^r fell down before him, and said in a loud voice, “What do you have to do with me,^s Jesus, Son of the Most High God?^t I beg you, don’t torment me!” ²⁹For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was guarded, bound by chains and shackles, he would snap the restraints and be driven by the demon into deserted places.

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

“Legion,”^u he said, because many demons had entered him. ³¹And they begged him not to banish them to the abyss.^v

³²A large herd of pigs was there, feeding on the hillside. The demons begged him to permit them to enter the pigs, and he gave them permission. ³³The demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

³⁴When the men who tended them saw what had happened, they ran off and reported it in the town and in the countryside. ³⁵Then people went out to see what had happened. They came to Jesus and found the man the demons had departed from, sitting at Jesus’s feet,^w dressed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. ³⁶Meanwhile, the eyewitnesses reported to them how the demon-possessed man was delivered.^{x 37}Then all the people of the Gerasene region^A asked him to leave them,^y because they were gripped by great fear. So getting into the boat, he returned.