Monday 1 February 2021

32What more shall I say?For the time would fail me if I told of Gideon,Barak, Samson, Jephthah,David, Samuel, and the prophets—33who through faith subdued kingdoms,worked out righteousness,obtained promises,stopped the mouths of lions,34quenched the power of fire,escaped the edge of the sword,from weakness were made strong,grew mighty in war,and caused foreign armies to flee.35Women received their dead by resurrection.Others were tortured,not accepting their deliverance,that they might obtain a better resurrection.36Others were tried by mocking and scourging,yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.37They were stoned.They were sawn apart.They were tempted.They were slain with the sword.They went around in sheep skins and in goat skins;being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—38of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts,mountains, caves, and the holes of the earth.

39These all, having been commended for their faith,didn’t receive the promise,40God having provided some better thing concerning us,so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

20Oh how great is your goodness,which you have laid up for those who fear you,which you have worked for those who take refuge in you,before the sons of men!21In the shelter of your presence you will hide them from the plotting of man.You will keep them secretly in a dwelling away from the strife of tongues.

22Praise be to the Lord,for he has shown me his marvelous loving kindness in a strong city.

23As for me, I said in my haste, “I am cut off from before your eyes.”Nevertheless you heard the voice of my petitions when I cried to you.

24Oh love the Lord, all you his saints!The Lord preserves the faithful,and fully recompenses him who behaves arrogantly.

1They came to the other side of the sea,into the country of the Gadarenes.2When he had come out of the boat,immediately a man with an unclean spirit met him out of the tombs.3He lived in the tombs.Nobody could bind him any more, not even with chains,4because he had been often bound with fetters and chains,and the chains had been torn apart by him,and the fetters broken in pieces.Nobody had the strength to tame him.5Always, night and day,in the tombs and in the mountains,he was crying out,and cutting himself with stones.6When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and bowed down to him,7and crying out with a loud voice,he said, “What have I to do with you,Jesus, you Son of the Most High God?I adjure you by God, don’t torment me.”8For he said to him,“Come out of the man,you unclean spirit!”

9He asked him, “What is your name?”

He said to him, “My name is Legion, for we are many.”10He begged him muchthat he would not send them away out of the country.11Now on the mountainside there was a great herd of pigs feeding.12All the demons begged him,saying, “Send us into the pigs,that we may enter into them.”

13At once Jesus gave them permission.The unclean spirits came out and entered into the pigs.The herd of about two thousand rushed down the steep bank into the sea,and they were drowned in the sea.14Those who fed the pigs fled,and told it in the city and in the country.

The people came to see what it was that had happened.15They came to Jesus,and saw him who had been possessed by demons sitting,clothed, and in his right mind,even him who had the legion;and they were afraid.16Those who saw it declared to them what happened to himwho was possessed by demons,and about the pigs.17They began to beg him to depart from their region.

18As he was entering into the boat,he who had been possessed by demons begged himthat he might be with him.19He didn’t allow him,but said to him, “Go to your house,to your friends,and tell them what great things the Lord has done for youand how he had mercy on you.”

20He went his way,and began to proclaim in Decapolis how Jesus had done great things for him,and everyone marveled.