5
“What Do You Want with Me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?”
1 They came to the other side of the lake, to the Gentile region on the southeastern side of the lake.
2 As soon as Jesus got out of the boat, he was met by a man from the burial caves who had an unclean spirit.
3 The man lived among the caves, and no one could keep him tied up, not even with a chain.
4 For he had been tied up many times with just that—shackles and chains—but had torn apart the chains. The shackles, too, had been broken in pieces. No one was strong enough to bring him under control.
5 All night long and all throughout the day, among the burial caves and in the mountains, he would constantly scream and cut himself with stones.
6 When this man saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him.
7 “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?” he screamed with a loud voice. “I put you under oath before God—don’t have me punished!”
8 (He said this because Jesus had already begun saying to him, “Come out of this man, ˢyou unclean spirit!”)
9 “What is your name?” Jesus asked him.
“My name is Legion,” he replied, “because we are so many.”10 And he pleaded with Jesus again and again not to send them out of the region.
11 Now there was in that place, on the hillside, a large heard of pigs feeding.
12 The demons pleaded with Jesus, “Send us into the pigs! Let us go into them!”
13 Jesus gave them permission. So the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep slope into the lake—about two thousand of them—and drowned in the water.
14 The herdsmen, then, ran away and told the story in the town and in the countryside, and people came to see what had happened.
15 They came to Jesus and saw the man who had been demonized sitting down clothed and in his right mind—the one who had had the “Legion”—and they were afraid.
16 Those who had seen the events described to the others in detail what had happened to the man with the demons, and they told them about the pigs, too.
17 So they began pleading with Jesus to leave their area.
18 As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had had the demons kept pleading with Jesus to let him go with him.
19 But Jesus wouldn’t let him; instead, he said to him, “Go back home to your own people, and tell them all that the Lord has done for ˢyou, and how he has had mercy on you.”
20 So the man left and began proclaiming in the ten Greek cities of that region all that Jesus had done for him, and everyone was in awe.
“This Faith of Yours Has Healed You”…“The Child Isn’t Dead”
21 When Jesus had crossed over again in the boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered near him while he was beside the lake.
22 Then one of the synagogue leaders, whose name was Jairus, arrived, and when he saw Jesus, he threw himself down at his feet
23 and pleaded with him urgently, “My dear daughter is just about to die! Please come and place your hands on her, so that she may be healed and live.”
24 So Jesus went with him.
A large crowd was following along with him and pressing up against him,25 when there came a certain woman, who had been suffering from abnormal bleeding for twelve years.
26 She had suffered many, many things under the care of a large number of physicians, and although she had spent every last cent she had, she had not been helped at all, but instead had grown even worse.
27 When this woman heard about Jesus, she came up in the crowd from behind and touched his garment,
28 for she kept saying, “If I can touch just his cloak, I will be healed.”
29 And instantly her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she had been healed of her affliction.
30 Jesus, then, immediately sensing in himself that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who was it that touched my cloak?”
31 “You see the crowd pressing up against you,” his disciples said to him, “and so how can you ask, ‘Who was it that touched me?’ ”
32 But he kept looking around to see the woman who had done this.
33 The woman, then, feeling afraid and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and threw herself down before him and told him the whole truth.
34 “Daughter,” Jesus said to her, “this faith of yours has healed you. Go in peace and be free from your affliction.”
35 While he was still speaking, some people arrived from the synagogue leader’s house. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why continue bothering the Teacher?”
36 Jesus, however, ignoring what they were saying, told the synagogue leader, “Don’t be afraid. Just keep having faith.”
37 Jesus didn’t let anyone go further with him, except these three: Peter and James and John the brother of James.
38 When they arrived at the synagogue leader’s house, Jesus saw wild wailing and weeping and loud crying.
39 He went in and said to them, “Why are ᵖyou wailing and weeping? The child isn’t dead, but only asleep.”
40 And they started laughing at him. Jesus, however, when he had driven everyone outside, took the child’s father and mother and the men who were with him and went in where the child was.
41 Taking the child by the hand, he said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Little girl, to you I say, wake up!”
42 And immediately the little girl got up and began to walk around. (She was twelve years old.) They were in complete awe.
43 Then Jesus gave them strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.