¹They arrived in the territory of the Gerasenes on the other side of the Sea of Galilee. ²As Jesus stepped out of the boat, a man came out of the tombs and met him. The man was controlled by an evil spirit ³and lived among the tombs. No one could restrain him any longer, not even with a chain. ⁴He had often been chained hand and foot. However, he snapped the chains off his hands and broke the chains from his feet. No one could control him. ⁵Night and day he was among the tombs and on the mountainsides screaming and cutting himself with stones.

⁶The man saw Jesus at a distance. So he ran ⸤to Jesus⸥, bowed down in front of him, ⁷and shouted, “Why are you bothering me now, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won’t torture me.” ⁸He shouted this because Jesus said, “You evil spirit, come out of the man.”

⁹Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

He told Jesus, “My name is Legion ^[Six Thousand^[, because there are many of us.” ¹⁰He begged Jesus not to send them out of the territory.

¹¹A large herd of pigs was feeding on a mountainside nearby. ¹²The demons begged him, “Send us into the pigs! Let us enter them!”

¹³Jesus let them do this. The evil spirits came out of the man and went into the pigs. The herd of about two thousand pigs rushed down the cliff into the sea and drowned.

¹⁴Those who took care of the pigs ran away. In the city and countryside they reported everything that had happened. So the people came to see what had happened. ¹⁵They came to Jesus and saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons. The man was sitting there dressed and in his right mind. The people were frightened. ¹⁶Those who saw this told what had happened to the demon-possessed man and the pigs. ¹⁷Then the people began to beg Jesus to leave their territory.

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Footnotes

[Proper names or foreign words whose meaning is significant for understanding a particular Bible passage are translated in brackets following the name or phrase