How long does it take to read the Bible?
The whole Bible at 238 words a minute
50 hr 54 min
Start reading at 238 words a minute- 3 min
- an average chapter
- 1 hr 17 min
- the Gospel of John
- 12 hr 2 min
- the New Testament
Reading the whole Bible takes about 51 hours at 238 words a minute, the average silent reading pace for adults. That covers all 726,745 words of a modern English Bible, counted from the full text. Over a year, it comes to about 9 minutes a day. Change the pace to see yours.
Common paces
Not sure of your pace? Time yourself on the opening of Ruth. It takes about 35 seconds.
At 15 minutes a day you finish the Bible in 204 days, about 7 months.
How long each book of the Bible takes to read
Times follow the pace you set above, 238 words a minute. Tap a book to open it in Iota at that pace.
Old Testament38 hr 51 min
- Genesis2 hr 27 min
- Exodus2 hr 2 min
- Leviticus1 hr 33 min
- Numbers2 hr
- Deuteronomy1 hr 48 min
- Joshua1 hr 8 min
- Judges1 hr 10 min
- Ruth10 min
- 1 Samuel1 hr 35 min
- 2 Samuel1 hr 18 min
- 1 Kings1 hr 34 min
- 2 Kings1 hr 31 min
- 1 Chronicles1 hr 18 min
- 2 Chronicles1 hr 41 min
- Ezra27 min
- Nehemiah40 min
- Esther21 min
- Job1 hr 10 min
- Psalms2 hr 50 min
- Proverbs59 min
- Ecclesiastes22 min
- Song of Solomon11 min
- Isaiah2 hr 23 min
- Jeremiah2 hr 46 min
- Lamentations14 min
- Ezekiel2 hr 31 min
- Daniel45 min
- Hosea21 min
- Joel8 min
- Amos16 min
- Obadiah3 min
- Jonah5 min
- Micah12 min
- Nahum5 min
- Habakkuk6 min
- Zephaniah6 min
- Haggai4 min
- Zechariah24 min
- Malachi7 min
New Testament12 hr 2 min
- Matthew1 hr 33 min
- Mark58 min
- Luke1 hr 40 min
- John1 hr 17 min
- Acts1 hr 34 min
- Romans40 min
- 1 Corinthians39 min
- 2 Corinthians25 min
- Galatians13 min
- Ephesians13 min
- Philippians9 min
- Colossians8 min
- 1 Thessalonians8 min
- 2 Thessalonians4 min
- 1 Timothy10 min
- 2 Timothy7 min
- Titus4 min
- Philemon2 min
- Hebrews28 min
- James9 min
- 1 Peter10 min
- 2 Peter6 min
- 1 John11 min
- 2 John1 min
- 3 John1 min
- Jude3 min
- Revelation47 min
Iota
Read the Bible one word at a time
Make it plain, that he may run that reads it. Habakkuk 2:2
Iota shows the Bible one word at a time, in one spot, at the pace you set above. One letter of each word is lit in gold, a little left of its middle, where the eye recognizes a word fastest (Brysbaert and Nazir, Journal of Research in Reading, 2005). That letter gives Iota its name: the smallest letter, from Matthew 5:18.
Speed-reading apps show the word and nothing else, and comprehension pays for it (Rayner, Schotter, Masson, Potter and Treiman, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2016). Readers who cannot look back understand less (Schotter, Tran and Rayner, Psychological Science, 2014), so Iota keeps the whole verse on screen underneath, with your word lit.
Tap to play and pause. Hold to brake, and slide to go back. Drag the verse map to jump anywhere. Short words pass quickly, long names get more time, and each sentence ends with a quiet beat. It opens in the Berean Standard Bible, with the King James one tap away. Voice mode plays the King James narration in time with the words at up to 2x, and phrase mode reads in short phrases. Your place and pace stay saved on this device.
How Bible reading time is calculated
Every time here is a word count divided by a reading pace. We counted every printed word of the Berean Standard Bible (726,745 across 1,189 chapters) and the King James Version (790,508), including the titles above the Psalms, so our totals run slightly above counts that leave them out.
The default pace, 238 words a minute, is the adult average for reading non-fiction silently; reading aloud averages 183. Both come from Marc Brysbaert's 2019 review of 190 studies in the Journal of Memory and Language. If you like to stop and think, lower the pace and the plan stretches to fit.
Bible reading time: common questions
How many words are in the Bible?
790,508 in the King James Version and 726,745 in the Berean Standard Bible, a modern English translation that uses about 8 percent fewer. Both totals are counted from the full text of all 66 books and 1,189 chapters.
How long does it take to read the New Testament?
About 12 hours and 2 minutes at 238 words a minute. The New Testament is 171,907 words in modern English, 24 percent of the whole Bible.
How long does it take to read the Old Testament?
About 38 hours and 51 minutes at 238 words a minute. The Old Testament is 554,838 words in modern English, which makes it most of the reading time for the whole Bible.
How long does it take to read the Bible out loud?
About 66 hours. Adults read aloud at around 183 words a minute, slower than the 238 they manage silently, so reading aloud adds roughly 15 hours to the total.
How long does it take to read the Bible in a year?
About 9 minutes a day at an average pace, or 3.3 chapters a day. To finish in ninety days, plan on about 34 minutes a day; in thirty days, about 1 hour and 42 minutes a day.
What are the shortest and longest books of the Bible?
2 John is the shortest at 296 words, about 1 minute of reading. Psalms is the longest at 40,498 words, about 2 hours and 50 minutes.