Reading the whole Bible takes about 51 hours in the Berean Standard Bible and about 55 hours in the King James Version, at an average adult reading pace. At a slower, more careful 200 words a minute, it's closer to 60 and 66 hours. Spread across a year, that's under ten minutes a day.
Those figures come from counting every word of the text in both translations. Below are the totals, the reading time for all 66 books, and what the numbers mean if you're planning to read it through.
How we counted
We counted the words in the verse text of each translation, leaving out section headings, footnotes and chapter titles, since you don't need to read those to have read the Bible. The Berean Standard Bible comes to about 725,000 words and the King James to about 790,000. The KJV is longer mostly because of its older grammar ("he that believeth on him" against "whoever believes in Him") and, in a few places, verses that modern translations move to footnotes.
For speed we used 238 words a minute, the average silent reading rate for adults reading non-fiction, from a 2019 review of 190 reading studies by the psychologist Marc Brysbaert. Your own pace will vary, and Scripture isn't average prose: genealogies, unfamiliar names and dense passages in the prophets or Paul's letters go slower, and stories go faster. Treat the times as a minimum for attentive reading.
The totals
| Section | BSB | KJV |
|---|---|---|
| Whole Bible (66 books, 1,189 chapters) | 50 h 44 min | 55 h 18 min |
| Old Testament (39 books) | 38 h 43 min | 42 h 40 min |
| New Testament (27 books) | 12 h 2 min | 12 h 38 min |
| The four Gospels | 5 h 29 min | 5 h 52 min |
The New Testament is less than a quarter of the Bible by length. You could read all of it in about twelve hours, or a chapter a day for most of a year.
What that means per day
- 10 minutes a day: the whole Bible in about ten months (BSB) or eleven (KJV).
- 15 minutes a day: about seven months.
- 20 minutes a day: about five months.
- A year, evenly paced: roughly 2,000 words or three to four chapters a day, which is eight or nine minutes at an average pace.
Chapters vary enormously, from Psalm 117's two verses to Psalm 119's 176, so plans that divide by chapters give you uneven days. Our guide to reading the Bible in a year covers the common plan shapes and how to recover when you fall behind.
Every book, timed
| Book | Chapters | BSB | KJV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old Testament | |||
| Genesis | 50 | 2 h 27 min | 2 h 41 min |
| Exodus | 40 | 2 h 2 min | 2 h 17 min |
| Leviticus | 27 | 1 h 32 min | 1 h 43 min |
| Numbers | 36 | 2 h 0 min | 2 h 18 min |
| Deuteronomy | 34 | 1 h 48 min | 1 h 59 min |
| Joshua | 24 | 1 h 8 min | 1 h 19 min |
| Judges | 21 | 1 h 10 min | 1 h 20 min |
| Ruth | 4 | 10 min | 11 min |
| 1 Samuel | 31 | 1 h 35 min | 1 h 45 min |
| 2 Samuel | 24 | 1 h 18 min | 1 h 27 min |
| 1 Kings | 22 | 1 h 34 min | 1 h 43 min |
| 2 Kings | 25 | 1 h 31 min | 1 h 39 min |
| 1 Chronicles | 29 | 1 h 17 min | 1 h 26 min |
| 2 Chronicles | 36 | 1 h 40 min | 1 h 50 min |
| Ezra | 10 | 27 min | 31 min |
| Nehemiah | 13 | 40 min | 44 min |
| Esther | 10 | 21 min | 24 min |
| Job | 42 | 1 h 10 min | 1 h 16 min |
| Psalms | 150 | 2 h 46 min | 2 h 59 min |
| Proverbs | 31 | 59 min | 1 h 3 min |
| Ecclesiastes | 12 | 22 min | 23 min |
| Song of Songs | 8 | 11 min | 11 min |
| Isaiah | 66 | 2 h 23 min | 2 h 36 min |
| Jeremiah | 52 | 2 h 46 min | 2 h 59 min |
| Lamentations | 5 | 14 min | 14 min |
| Ezekiel | 48 | 2 h 31 min | 2 h 46 min |
| Daniel | 12 | 45 min | 49 min |
| Hosea | 14 | 21 min | 22 min |
| Joel | 3 | 8 min | 9 min |
| Amos | 9 | 16 min | 18 min |
| Obadiah | 1 | 3 min | 3 min |
| Jonah | 4 | 5 min | 6 min |
| Micah | 7 | 12 min | 13 min |
| Nahum | 3 | 5 min | 5 min |
| Habakkuk | 3 | 6 min | 6 min |
| Zephaniah | 3 | 6 min | 7 min |
| Haggai | 2 | 4 min | 5 min |
| Zechariah | 14 | 24 min | 27 min |
| Malachi | 4 | 7 min | 7 min |
| New Testament | |||
| Matthew | 28 | 1 h 33 min | 1 h 40 min |
| Mark | 16 | 58 min | 1 h 4 min |
| Luke | 24 | 1 h 40 min | 1 h 49 min |
| John | 21 | 1 h 17 min | 1 h 20 min |
| Acts | 28 | 1 h 34 min | 1 h 42 min |
| Romans | 16 | 40 min | 40 min |
| 1 Corinthians | 16 | 39 min | 40 min |
| 2 Corinthians | 13 | 25 min | 25 min |
| Galatians | 6 | 13 min | 13 min |
| Ephesians | 6 | 13 min | 13 min |
| Philippians | 4 | 9 min | 9 min |
| Colossians | 4 | 8 min | 8 min |
| 1 Thessalonians | 5 | 8 min | 8 min |
| 2 Thessalonians | 3 | 4 min | 4 min |
| 1 Timothy | 6 | 10 min | 9 min |
| 2 Timothy | 4 | 7 min | 7 min |
| Titus | 3 | 4 min | 4 min |
| Philemon | 1 | 2 min | 2 min |
| Hebrews | 13 | 28 min | 29 min |
| James | 5 | 9 min | 10 min |
| 1 Peter | 5 | 10 min | 10 min |
| 2 Peter | 3 | 6 min | 7 min |
| 1 John | 5 | 10 min | 11 min |
| 2 John | 1 | 1 min | 1 min |
| 3 John | 1 | 1 min | 1 min |
| Jude | 1 | 3 min | 3 min |
| Revelation | 22 | 47 min | 50 min |
A few things the numbers show
- The longest book depends on the translation. Psalms has by far the most chapters, but it's roughly tied with Jeremiah for words. In the BSB, Jeremiah is longer by 83 words; in the KJV, Psalms is longer by 28.
- So does the shortest. 2 John is the shortest book in the BSB and 3 John in the KJV. Either takes about a minute.
- Many New Testament books are single sittings. Philippians, Colossians, both letters to the Thessalonians, James, 1 Peter and 1 John each take about ten minutes or less. Reading a letter in one go, the way its first readers heard it, is one of the easiest ways to understand it.
- Mark takes about an hour. The shortest Gospel is the length of a feature documentary, and a good place to start if you've never read the Bible before. See where to start reading the Bible.
- The heavy middle of the Old Testament is long. Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel together take over seven hours, which is part of why so many read-through attempts stall in the prophets. Knowing that in advance helps.
So, how long?
About fifty hours for a modern translation, a little more for the King James. That's less time than many people spend on a long television series. The obstacle is rarely the hours; it's knowing where to start and keeping going through the long stretches, and those are much easier with a realistic idea of how long each part takes.