How many words are in the Bible?
How many words are in the Bible? It depends on the translation and on how you count: the King James Bible comes to 790,705 words by our count, and other sources quote 783,137. Three quarters of them, 610,220 (77%), are in the Old Testament; the New Testament has 180,485. This page covers why the totals differ, how the two Testaments compare, and how long the whole thing takes to read. For a count of every individual book, see how many words are in the King James Bible.
Old Testament and New Testament word counts
The Old Testament has 610,220 words in 39 books, an average of 15,647 words per book. The New Testament has 180,485 words in 27 books, an average of 6,685. In other words, the Old Testament is about 3.4 times as long as the New, which is why reading plans that move through both at once feel so uneven near the end of the year.
How many words are in the Bible, and why do totals differ?
Search for this question and you will find several numbers, most often 783,137 for the KJV. Word counts depend on small rules: whether a hyphenated name like Beth-el is one word or two, whether chapter headings and footnotes count, and which printing of the text you start from. Our count uses the full text of the 66 books, without headings, and counts every run of letters as a word, so hyphenated names count twice and possessives such as God’s count once. Other translations differ much more: modern versions such as the NIV and ESV use different wording throughout, so their totals are not comparable with the KJV.
Longest and shortest books
The longest book by words is Jeremiah at 42,717, only 8 words ahead of Psalms. The shortest is 3 John at 294 words, short enough to read in about a minute.
The five longest and five shortest books
| Book | Chapters | Verses | Words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeremiah | 52 | 1,364 | 42,717 |
| Psalms | 150 | 2,461 | 42,709 |
| Ezekiel | 48 | 1,273 | 39,417 |
| Genesis | 50 | 1,533 | 38,323 |
| Isaiah | 66 | 1,292 | 37,059 |
| Obadiah | 1 | 21 | 669 |
| Jude | 1 | 25 | 608 |
| Philemon | 1 | 25 | 430 |
| 2 John | 1 | 13 | 298 |
| 3 John | 1 | 14 | 294 |
The full table, all 66 books in Bible order, is on the how many words are in the King James Bible page.
How many books, chapters, and verses are in the Bible?
The Protestant Bible has 66 books: 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. Together they hold 1,189 chapters and 31,102 verses. The Old Testament accounts for 929 chapters and 23,145 verses; the New Testament for 260 chapters and 7,957 verses. Psalms has the most chapters of any book, 150, which is why it feels like the longest book even though Jeremiah edges it out on words.
Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include extra books, such as Tobit, Judith, and the books of Maccabees, so their totals are higher. The original 1611 printing of the King James Bible also carried these books, the Apocrypha, between the Testaments; most KJV editions sold today leave them out. All the numbers on this page, and the answer to how many words are in the Bible at the top, cover the 66 books only.
Chapter and verse numbers are not part of the original text either. The chapter divisions most Bibles use date to Stephen Langton in the thirteenth century, and the New Testament verse numbers to the printer Robert Estienne in 1551. They were added to make passages easy to find, which is also what lets the checker on this site tell you the exact first verse where any word appears.
How long does it take to read all of the words in the Bible?
How many words are in the Bible matters most when you plan a reading schedule. At 250 words a minute, reading 790,705 words takes about 52.7 hours. Spread over a year, that is 2,166 words a day, or about 9 minutes. A 90-day plan needs 8,786 words a day, about 35 minutes of steady reading. The Old Testament is about 77% of the words, so a plan that reads both Testaments in parallel keeps the daily load fairly even.
Those are reading times for the King James text. Other translations phrase the same verses with more or fewer words, because the King James Version tends toward compact, formal phrasing while modern versions often add explanatory words. If you need the exact length of a different translation, count from its own text.
The most common words in the Bible
Small words lead, as in any English text: the (63,938 times), and (51,702), and of (34,629). Shall and unto break into the top ten, which is a quick way to hear 1611 English. The complete top 25 is on the King James word count page.
Count the Bible words in your own text
Once you know how many words are in the Bible, and that 12,681 of them are different, it is easy to test anything against them. Paste a sentence or song into the checker to see what share of your words are in the KJV. Some everyday words are surprisingly absent, such as cat and dinosaur, while others you might not expect, like unicorn, are there. Religious words such as Trinity and rapture are missing entirely, and even the word Christianshows up only 3 times in the whole text, a reminder that a large vocabulary does not mean every familiar word is in it.
Frequently asked questions
Why do different sources give different Bible word counts?
Counting rules differ. The figure most often quoted for the KJV is 783,137; our count is 790,705, because we count hyphenated names such as Beth-el as two words. Translation also matters: the NIV and ESV word the same verses differently, so their totals are not comparable. For the KJV count of every single book, see the King James Bible word count page.
How many different words are in the Bible?
The KJV uses 12,681 different word forms when capital letters are ignored and every spelling is kept separate, so lord and lords, or God and God's, count as different forms. That is the word list the checker on the home page uses.
What is the longest book of the Bible by word count?
Jeremiah, with 42,717 words, just ahead of Psalms at 42,709. Psalms has far more chapters and verses (150 chapters, 2,461 verses), but its verses are shorter.
How long does it take to read the whole Bible?
At 250 words a minute, a typical adult reading speed, the KJV takes about 52.7 hours of reading. Fifteen minutes a day gets you through it in a little over seven months.
What is the most common word in the Bible?
The. It appears 63,938 times in the King James Bible, followed by and (51,702) and of (34,629). Shall and unto both make the top ten, a clear sign of 1611 English.