3 accounts of this passage
Mark 5:1–20
1Jesus and his disciples crossed the sea and arrived in the region of the Gadarenes. 2The moment Jesus stepped out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out from among the tombs to meet him. 3This man lived among the burial tombs, and no one could restrain him — not even with chains. 4People had tried many times to bind him with shackles and chains, but he snapped the chains apart and shattered the shackles. No one was strong enough to control him. 5Day and night, he was in the mountains and the tombs, crying and cutting himself with stones. 6When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and worshipped him. 7He cried out with a loud voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me!" 8He said this because Jesus had commanded, "Come out of this man, you unclean spirit!" 9Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" He answered, "My name is Legion, because there are many of us." 10The demons begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the region. 11Nearby on the hillside, a large herd of pigs was feeding. 12The demons pleaded with him, "Send us into the pigs! Let us go into them." 13Jesus gave them permission. The unclean spirits came out of the man and entered the pigs. The entire herd — about 2,000 of them — stampeded down the steep bank into the sea and drowned. 14The men tending the pigs ran off and spread the news throughout the town and the surrounding countryside. People came out to see what had happened. 15When they reached Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons sitting there, fully clothed and in his right mind. This terrified them. 16The eyewitnesses described everything that had happened to the demon-possessed man and told them about the pigs. 17The people began begging Jesus to leave their region. 18As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been possessed by the devil begged to go with him. 19But Jesus did not allow him. Instead, he said, "Go home to your friends and tell them all the great things the Lord has done for you and how He has had compassion on you." 20So the man went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis the great things Jesus had done for him, and everyone was amazed.