Mark 5:11-22

¹¹At the same time, a large herd of pigs was ◄grazing/rooting for food► nearby on the hillside.

¹²So the evil spirits pleaded with Jesus, “Allow us to go to the pigs in order that we might enter them!”

¹³He permitted them to do that. So the evil spirits left the man and entered the pigs. The herd, which numbered about 2,000, rushed down the cliff into the lake, and drowned in the lake.

¹⁴The men who had been tending the pigs ran and reported in the town and the countryside what had happened. Many people went to see what had happened.

¹⁵They came to the place where Jesus was. Then they saw the man whom evil spirits had previously controlled. He was sitting there with clothes on and mentally sound. As a result, they became afraid because they thought that Jesus might destroy more of their property. (OR, they realized that Jesus must be very powerful.)

¹⁶The people who had seen what had happened described what had happened to the man whom the evil spirits previously controlled. They also described what had happened to the pigs.

¹⁷Then the people pleaded with Jesus to leave their region.

¹⁸As Jesus got in the boat in order to leave, the man whom the evil spirits previously controlled begged Jesus, “ Please let me go with you!”

¹⁹But Jesus did not let him go with him. On the contrary, he said to him, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord God has done for you, and tell them how God was kind to you.”

²⁰So the man left and traveled around the Ten Towns district. He told people how much Jesus had done for him. All the people who heard what the man said were amazed.

²¹Jesus and his disciples went in a boat back around Lake Galilee to where they were before. When they arrived at the shore of the lake, a large crowd gathered around Jesus.

²²One of the men who presided over a ◄synagogue/Jewish meeting place►, whose name was Jairus, came there. When he saw Jesus, he prostrated himself at his feet.