Scripture Reading

(Mark 5:1-20) They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. {2} And when he had stepped out of the boat, immediately a man out of the tombs with an unclean spirit met him. {3} He lived among the tombs; and no one could restrain him any more, even with a chain; {4} for he had often been restrained with shackles and chains, but the chains he wrenched apart, and the shackles he broke in pieces; and no one had the strength to subdue him. {5} Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always howling and bruising himself with stones. {6} When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and bowed down before him; {7} and he shouted at the top of his voice, "What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me." {8} For he had said to him, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" {9} Then Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He replied, "My name is Legion; for we are many." {10} He begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. {11} Now there on the hillside a great herd of swine was feeding; {12} and the unclean spirits begged him, "Send us into the swine; let us enter them." {13} So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the swine; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea. {14} The swineherds ran off and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came to see what it was that had happened. {15} They came to Jesus and saw the demoniac sitting there, clothed and in his right mind, the very man who had had the legion; and they were afraid. {16} Those who had seen what had happened to the demoniac and to the swine reported it. {17} Then they began to beg Jesus to leave their neighborhood. {18} As he was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by demons begged him that he might be with him. {19} But Jesus refused, and said to him, "Go home to your friends, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and what mercy he has shown you." {20} And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him; and everyone was amazed.