Jesus Seeks Out the Gerasene Madman

As Jesus and his disciples stepped out of the boat, a demon-possessed man came running at them with a terrible cry. He was strong enough to snap chains, and no one could subdue him. Night and day he roamed among the tombs and in the mountains, cutting himself with stones.

The demon that ruled him was called Legion, an army in itself. When Jesus ordered them out, these many demons saw that they could no longer keep the man as their slave. So they begged Jesus to send them into a nearby herd of pigs. To save one soul, he allowed it, and the whole herd rushed into the lake and perished.

The people who had lost their pigs counted their own loss greater than one man’s life, and they pleaded with Jesus to leave. The man who had been restored wanted to follow him. Jesus told him instead to go home and tell what God had done, and from then on he proclaimed the gospel to his own household and throughout the Decapolis.