How many chapters are in the Bible? Every book, every canon
The 66-book Bible has 1,189 chapters, 929 in the Old Testament and 260 in the New. Catholic Bibles have 1,334. Every book's count, in all five canons.
The short answer
The Protestant Bible has 1,189 chapters in its 66 books, 929 in the Old Testament and 260 in the New, and the King James Version, the NIV, the ESV and other Protestant translations all share that count. The 73-book Catholic Bible has 1,334 chapters, and Bibles with the Orthodox or Ethiopian books more again, 1,386 and 1,564 by our count. Every extra chapter is in the Old Testament; the New Testament has 260 in all of them.
In this guide
- How many chapters are in the Bible, canon by canon
- How many chapters are in each book of the Bible?
- How many chapters are in the Catholic Bible?
- How many chapters are in the Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles?
- Old Testament and New Testament chapters, by division
- Which books of the Bible have only one chapter, and which have the most?
- Who divided the Bible into chapters and verses?
- How long it takes to read every chapter
- Questions people ask
- Sources
Ask how many chapters are in the Bible and you will usually be told 1,189. For most English Bibles that is right, but only because most English Bibles have 66 books. Catholic, Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles carry more, and the number of chapters follows. Every chapter count below comes from our own book table, the one the BibleRing app counts against, with the Protestant figures checked against our count of the King James text.
- 1,189chapters in the 66-book Protestant Bible
- 929in the Old Testament
- 260in the New Testament, in all five canons
- 1,334in the 73-book Catholic Bible
How many chapters are in the Bible, canon by canon
The Protestant Bible has 1,189 chapters, the Catholic Bible 1,334, and Bibles that also carry the Apocrypha, the Orthodox books or the Ethiopian books between 1,360 and 1,564. Here are all five, with the chapters of each testament:
| Canon | Books | Chapters | Old + New Testament |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protestant | 66 | 1,189 | 929 + 260 |
| Catholic | 73 | 1,334 | 1,074 + 260 |
| With Apocrypha | 76 | 1,360 | 1,100 + 260 |
| Orthodox | 78 | 1,386 | 1,126 + 260 |
| Ethiopian | 80 | 1,564 | 1,304 + 260 |
The New Testament is the same 27 books and 260 chapters in all five, so every difference sits in the Old Testament. Each canon in the table holds the books of the one above it, with one exception at the end:
- Protestant (66 books): 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New.
- Catholic (73): adds Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees, and reads Esther and Daniel with their Greek additions. Catholics call these books deuterocanonical; Protestants have usually called them the Apocrypha.
- With Apocrypha (76): the Catholic books plus 1 and 2 Esdras and the Prayer of Manasseh, as Anglican Bibles print the Apocrypha.
- Orthodox (78): adds 3 and 4 Maccabees and Psalm 151.
- Ethiopian (80): the Old Testament of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, which keeps Psalm 151 and adds Enoch, Jubilees, 4 Baruch and the three books of Meqabyan. It has no book of Maccabees: the Meqabyan, different books with a similar name, stand where 1 and 2 Maccabees stand in other Bibles.
Does the translation change the number of chapters?
No. The King James Version, the NIV, the ESV, the NLT and every other standard Protestant translation divide the same 66 books into the same 1,189 chapters, because they all inherit one chapter system that is centuries older than any of them. What differs between translations is a handful of verses. Modern translations such as the NIV and ESV move about sixteen New Testament verses, Acts 8:37 among them, into footnotes, because the oldest manuscripts do not have them. The numbering is kept and no chapter is lost: the New Testament still has 260.
How many verses are in the Bible?
By our count the King James Version has 31,102 verses: 23,145 in the Old Testament and 7,957 in the New, an average of about 26 a chapter. Other translations come out a few verses either side, depending on where a verse is split or footnoted. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles have several thousand more, since the seven deuterocanonical books alone hold about 4,100 verses in the World English Bible.
How many chapters are in each book of the Bible?
Genesis has 50 chapters, Exodus 40, Psalms 150, Isaiah 66, Matthew 28 and Revelation 22; the table gives every book of the 66 with its chapters in each of the five canons. Only three of those books change length from one canon to another: Esther (10 chapters or 16), Daniel (12 or 14) and Psalms (150 or 151).
| Book | Protestant | Catholic | With Apocrypha | Orthodox | Ethiopian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Old Testament | |||||
| Genesis | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
| Exodus | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 | 40 |
| Leviticus | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 | 27 |
| Numbers | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 |
| Deuteronomy | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 | 34 |
| Joshua | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| Judges | 21 | 21 | 21 | 21 | 21 |
| Ruth | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 1 Samuel | 31 | 31 | 31 | 31 | 31 |
| 2 Samuel | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| 1 Kings | 22 | 22 | 22 | 22 | 22 |
| 2 Kings | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 |
| 1 Chronicles | 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 | 29 |
| 2 Chronicles | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 | 36 |
| Ezra | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Nehemiah | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 |
| Esther | 10 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Job | 42 | 42 | 42 | 42 | 42 |
| Psalms | 150 | 150 | 150 | 151 | 151 |
| Proverbs | 31 | 31 | 31 | 31 | 31 |
| Ecclesiastes | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Song of Songs | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Isaiah | 66 | 66 | 66 | 66 | 66 |
| Jeremiah | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 |
| Lamentations | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Ezekiel | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 | 48 |
| Daniel | 12 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
| Hosea | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
| Joel | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Amos | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| Obadiah | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Jonah | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Micah | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 7 |
| Nahum | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Habakkuk | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Zephaniah | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Haggai | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Zechariah | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
| Malachi | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| New Testament | |||||
| Matthew | 28 | 28 | 28 | 28 | 28 |
| Mark | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Luke | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| John | 21 | 21 | 21 | 21 | 21 |
| Acts | 28 | 28 | 28 | 28 | 28 |
| Romans | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| 1 Corinthians | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| 2 Corinthians | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 |
| Galatians | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Ephesians | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Philippians | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Colossians | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 1 Thessalonians | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 2 Thessalonians | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 1 Timothy | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| 2 Timothy | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| Titus | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Philemon | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Hebrews | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 |
| James | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 1 Peter | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 2 Peter | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 1 John | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 2 John | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 John | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Jude | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Revelation | 22 | 22 | 22 | 22 | 22 |
The books outside the 66
Catholic, Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles carry books the Protestant Bible does not. Here they are with their chapters in each canon; a dash means that canon does not include the book.
| Book | Protestant | Catholic | With Apocrypha | Orthodox | Ethiopian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Esdras | — | — | 9 | 9 | 9 |
| 2 Esdras | — | — | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| Tobit | — | 14 | 14 | 14 | 14 |
| Judith | — | 16 | 16 | 16 | 16 |
| 1 Maccabees | — | 16 | 16 | 16 | — |
| 2 Maccabees | — | 15 | 15 | 15 | — |
| 3 Maccabees | — | — | — | 7 | — |
| 4 Maccabees | — | — | — | 18 | — |
| Wisdom | — | 19 | 19 | 19 | 19 |
| Sirach | — | 51 | 51 | 51 | 51 |
| Prayer of Manasseh | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Baruch | — | 6 | 6 | 6 | 6 |
| Book | Protestant | Catholic | With Apocrypha | Orthodox | Ethiopian |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jubilees | — | — | — | — | 50 |
| 1 Meqabyan | — | — | — | — | 36 |
| 2 Meqabyan | — | — | — | — | 21 |
| 3 Meqabyan | — | — | — | — | 10 |
| 4 Baruch | — | — | — | — | 9 |
| Enoch | — | — | — | — | 108 |
If you would rather have the list on paper, the printable Bible reading tracker sets out every chapter of every book as a box to tick, for each of the five canons.
How many chapters are in the Catholic Bible?
The Catholic Bible has 1,334 chapters in 73 books: 1,074 in the 46 books of the Old Testament and 260 in the New. That is 145 more than a Protestant Bible, and all of them are in the Old Testament:
| Book | In the Catholic Bible | Chapters added |
|---|---|---|
| Tobit | A whole book. A journey with an angel in disguise. | 14 |
| Judith | A whole book. A widow walks into an enemy camp. | 16 |
| Esther | 6 more chapters: the Greek additions | 6 |
| 1 Maccabees | A whole book. The revolt and the rededicated temple. | 16 |
| 2 Maccabees | A whole book. The same revolt, told for the heart. | 15 |
| Wisdom | A whole book. Greek thought meets Hebrew faith. | 19 |
| Sirach | A whole book. A grandfather's practical advice. | 51 |
| Baruch | A whole book. Jeremiah's secretary, writing from exile. | 6 |
| Daniel | 2 more chapters: the Greek additions | 2 |
| From 1,189 chapters to 1,334 | +145 | |
Seven whole books bring 137 chapters, and Esther and Daniel, read with their Greek additions, bring the other eight. Sirach alone, at 51 chapters, has more than any book of the Protestant Bible except Psalms, Isaiah and Jeremiah. Our guide to the Catholic and Protestant Bibles explains how the two lists came to differ.
Why some Catholic Bibles count 1,328
The figure of 1,334 follows the numbering of the Latin Vulgate, where Esther runs to 16 chapters and Daniel to 14, with Susanna as chapter 13 and Bel and the Dragon as chapter 14. The New American Bible Revised Edition, the translation the U.S. Catholic bishops publish, prints Esther differently: its Greek additions are lettered A to F and set among the ten numbered chapters of the Hebrew book. Counted by its numbered chapters, that edition comes to 1,328 (it also gives Joel four chapters and Malachi three, which cancel each other out). The material is the same; only its arrangement and numbering differ.
How many chapters are in the Bible with the Apocrypha?
A Bible with the Apocrypha has 1,360 chapters in 76 books. It carries all the Catholic books and three more: 1 Esdras (9 chapters), 2 Esdras (16) and the Prayer of Manasseh (1), which is 26 chapters more than a Catholic Bible.
How many chapters are in the Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles?
By our count the Orthodox Bible has 1,386 chapters in 78 books, and the Ethiopian Bible 1,564 in 80. The Orthodox canon takes the Bible with the Apocrypha and adds 3 Maccabees (7 chapters), 4 Maccabees (18) and Psalm 151. The Ethiopian canon starts from the same place and goes further, and differently:
| Book | In the Ethiopian Bible | Chapters added |
|---|---|---|
| Jubilees | A whole book. Genesis retold, and the calendar behind it. | 50 |
| 1 Meqabyan | A whole book. Three brothers who would not bow. | 36 |
| 2 Meqabyan | A whole book. A king's downfall, told for Ethiopia. | 21 |
| 3 Meqabyan | A whole book. Ten chapters on judgment and mercy. | 10 |
| Psalms | Psalm 151 | 1 |
| 4 Baruch | A whole book. Sixty-six years asleep, and a changed city. | 9 |
| Enoch | A whole book. Watchers, giants, and a tour of heaven. | 108 |
| 1 Maccabees | Not in the Ethiopian canon: the three Meqabyan, different books with the same name, stand in their place. | −16 |
| 2 Maccabees | Not in the Ethiopian canon: the three Meqabyan, different books with the same name, stand in their place. | −15 |
| From 1,360 chapters to 1,564 | +204 | |
Enoch alone has 108 chapters, more than any book but the Psalms, and Jubilees has 50.
Both of these totals are one count among several. Orthodox churches do not all print the same Old Testament: Bible Gateway, counting the Greek Orthodox one, arrives at 1,114 chapters in 50 books, against the 1,126 in 51 here. The Ethiopian church’s own canon is usually given as 81 books, counted and grouped differently from Western Bibles, which our guide to the Ethiopian Bible explains.
Old Testament and New Testament chapters, by division
The Old Testament has 929 chapters in a Protestant Bible and the New Testament 260, so about 78% of the Bible’s chapters are in the Old Testament. Grouping the books by kind, into eight divisions, shows where those chapters sit:
| Division | Protestant books | Protestant chapters | Catholic books | Catholic chapters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Law (Genesis to Deuteronomy) | 5 | 187 | 5 | 187 |
| History (Joshua to Esther) | 12 | 249 | 16 | 316 |
| Wisdom (Job to Song of Songs) | 5 | 243 | 7 | 313 |
| Prophets (Isaiah to Malachi) | 17 | 250 | 18 | 258 |
| Gospels | 4 | 89 | 4 | 89 |
| Acts | 1 | 28 | 1 | 28 |
| Epistles (Romans to Jude) | 21 | 121 | 21 | 121 |
| Revelation | 1 | 22 | 1 | 22 |
| Whole Bible | 66 | 1,189 | 73 | 1,334 |
Two things stand out. Wisdom has only five books but 243 chapters, because 150 of them are Psalms; the 21 letters of the New Testament come to 121 chapters, fewer than the Psalms alone. And the Prophets, with 250 chapters, have more than the four Gospels, Acts and all the letters put together.
Which books of the Bible have only one chapter, and which have the most?
Five books of the Protestant Bible have a single chapter: Obadiah in the Old Testament, and Philemon, 2 John, 3 John and Jude in the New. Bibles that print the Apocrypha add a sixth, the Prayer of Manasseh, fifteen verses long. Obadiah’s 21 verses make it the shortest book in the Protestant Old Testament; 2 John is the shortest in the whole Bible by verses, with 13, and 3 John by words.
At the other end, Psalms has the most chapters by far, with 150 (151 in Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles), followed by Isaiah with 66, Jeremiah 52, Genesis 50, Ezekiel 48 and Job 42. In a Catholic Bible, Sirach’s 51 chapters put it fourth; in an Ethiopian one, Enoch’s 108 put it second. The longest and shortest books of the Bible are ranked by verses and words as well.
The middle chapter of the Bible, and the middle verse
The middle chapter of the Protestant Bible is Psalm 117: the 595th of 1,189, with 594 chapters before it and 594 after. It is also the shortest chapter in the Bible, two verses long. Psalm 119, two psalms later, is the longest, at 176 verses. The second verse of the middle chapter begins:
For his loving kindness is great toward us. Yahweh’s faithfulness endures forever.
Psalm 117:2, World English Bible
The middle verse is somewhere else. Psalm 118:8 is often named as the center of the Bible, but by our count of the King James Version’s 31,102 verses, the middle falls between Psalm 103:1 and 103:2, the 15,551st and 15,552nd verses. Psalm 118:8 is the 15,878th. The two middles do not line up because the chapters before Psalm 117 are a little longer, on average, than the ones after it: about 26.7 verses against 25.6.
In a Catholic or Orthodox Bible, with its extra chapters, the middle chapter still falls in the Psalms, but no longer at Psalm 117.
Who divided the Bible into chapters and verses?
In the early 13th century Stephen Langton, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, divided the Bible into the chapters still used today, and in 1551 the printer Robert Estienne numbered the New Testament’s verses. Both systems were added long after the books were written, to make a passage easier to find.
John Wycliffe’s Bible of 1382 was the first in English to include Langton’s chapters. The Old Testament’s verse numbers are usually traced to a Hebrew concordance of about 1440; Estienne’s New Testament numbering, first printed in his Greek edition, is the system almost every Bible still uses. The Geneva Bible of 1560 was the first English Bible to use both chapters and verses.
How long it takes to read every chapter
Read one chapter a day and the Protestant Bible takes 1,189 days, about three years and three months; a Catholic Bible takes 1,334 days, about three years and eight months. A little over three chapters a day finishes the 66 books in a year, and the New Testament alone, at one chapter a day, takes 260 days. Our guide to how many chapters a day to read works it out for other timelines, and how long it takes to read the Bible gives the hours, book by book.
Whichever total your Bible has, each chapter in it is a short read: two or three minutes, on average.
Questions people ask
What is the middle chapter of the Bible?
In the 66-book Protestant Bible it is Psalm 117, the 595th of 1,189 chapters, with 594 on either side. It is also the shortest chapter in the Bible, at two verses. In a Catholic or Orthodox Bible, which has more chapters, the middle still falls in the Psalms, but not at Psalm 117.
Which books of the Bible have only one chapter?
Five books of the Protestant Bible have a single chapter. Obadiah is in the Old Testament; Philemon, 2 John, 3 John and Jude are in the New. Bibles that print the Apocrypha add a sixth, the Prayer of Manasseh. Of the five, 2 John is the shortest by verses, with 13, and 3 John the shortest by words.
Does the NIV have a different number of chapters than the KJV?
No. The NIV, the ESV, the NLT and the King James Version all have 1,189 chapters, 260 of them in the New Testament. Modern translations move about sixteen New Testament verses, Acts 8:37 among them, into footnotes because the oldest manuscripts lack them, but they keep the verse numbering, and no chapter changes.
Who divided the Bible into chapters and verses?
The chapters used today go back to Stephen Langton, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, in the early 13th century. The New Testament's verse numbers came about three centuries later, from the printer Robert Estienne's Greek New Testament of 1551; the Old Testament's are usually traced to a Hebrew concordance of about 1440. The Geneva Bible of 1560 was the first English Bible with both.
How many verses are in the Bible?
By our count the King James Version has 31,102 verses in its 66 books, 23,145 in the Old Testament and 7,957 in the New, an average of about 26 a chapter. Other translations come out a few verses either side, and Catholic and Orthodox Bibles have several thousand more in their additional books.
How many chapters are in the Catholic Old Testament?
1,074 chapters in 46 books, which is 145 more than the 929 of the Protestant Old Testament. Seven books bring 137 of them (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees), and Esther and Daniel, read with their Greek additions, bring the other eight.
Sources
- Chapters and verses of the Bible, Wikipedia
- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bible Verses and Chapters, Bible Gateway Learn
- Esther, introduction, New American Bible Revised Edition (USCCB)
- Additions to Daniel, Wikipedia
- Orthodox Tewahedo biblical canon, Wikipedia
- List of New Testament verses not included in modern English translations, Wikipedia
- Joel, chapter 4, New American Bible Revised Edition (USCCB)
- Malachi, chapter 3, New American Bible Revised Edition (USCCB)
- King James Version, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
- World English Bible, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
- Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047.
