Read the Bible in two years (or one chapter a day)

The short answer

To read the 66-book Protestant Bible in two years, read about 1.6 chapters a day: two chapters on most days and one on the rest, roughly five minutes of reading. The 73-book Catholic Bible takes 1.8 a day. Eighteen months is 2.2 chapters a day (about 7 minutes) and three years is 1.1 (3 to 4 minutes). At one chapter a day, the Protestant Bible takes 1,189 days, about 3 years and 3 months.

In this guide

1. How many chapters a day to read the Bible in two years
2. How long does it take to read the Bible one chapter a day?
3. How long is one chapter of the Bible?
4. Is one chapter a day enough?
5. Ways to build a two-year Bible reading plan
6. Reading the Bible chronologically in two years
7. Missing days on a two-year plan
8. One year, two years or three?
9. Questions people ask
10. Sources

Most reading plans assume a year, and a year is about eleven minutes a day. Plenty of people would rather read the whole Bible at a gentler pace, with more time for each chapter and a plan that survives a busy season. Reading the Bible in two years halves the daily load, and one chapter a day takes it lower still. The figures below come from the chapter counts BibleRing uses for five canons and from our own word count of a public-domain translation.

• 1.6chapters a day to finish in two years
• 5 minof reading a day at that pace
• 2.2chapters a day for 18 months
• 1,189 daysat one chapter a day

How many chapters a day to read the Bible in two years

To read the Bible in two years, read about 1.6 chapters a day. The Protestant Bible has 1,189 chapters and two years has 730 days, and since nobody reads six tenths of a chapter, that works out in practice to two chapters on about five days in every eight and one chapter on the rest.

In words it is smaller than it sounds. By our count, the 66 books of the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation, come to 750,220 words, so two years is about 1,028 words a day. At the average adult silent reading pace of 238 words a minute that takes a little over four minutes, and at a relaxed 200 words a minute about five.

Eighteen months sits between the one-year and two-year paces at 2.2 chapters a day: about 1,370 words, or six to seven minutes. Three years is 1.1 chapters a day, about 685 words, which comes to one chapter on most days and two on roughly one day in twelve.

In the Catholic, Orthodox and Ethiopian Bibles

Wider canons have more chapters, so the same two years asks a little more of each day. The 73-book Catholic Bible has 1,334 chapters and takes 1.8 a day; the 80-book Ethiopian Bible, the longest of the five, takes 2.1.

The difference comes from the books each tradition holds. Catholic Bibles include Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1 and 2 Maccabees, along with longer forms of Esther and Daniel: the books Catholics call deuterocanonical and many Protestants call the Apocrypha. Orthodox Bibles add a few more, such as 3 Maccabees and Psalm 151, and the Bible of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church includes Enoch and Jubilees. Our guide to how many chapters are in the Bible lists every book in every canon.

Reading five days a week

A weekdays-only plan finishes in two years at about 2.3 chapters a day, roughly seven and a half minutes. Two years holds about 521 weekdays, and the weekends stay free for rest, for catching up or for reading on. For the Catholic Bible, two years of weekdays is 2.6 chapters a day.

The figures are chapters a day for the Protestant Bible, with minutes at about 3.3 a chapter.

How long does it take to read the Bible one chapter a day?

One chapter a day takes the Protestant Bible 1,189 days, about 3 years and 3 months. It is the simplest plan there is: open where you left off, read one chapter, stop. The wider canons take longer in proportion to their chapters.

Read on weekdays only, a chapter a day takes the Protestant Bible about 4½ years. Two chapters every day finishes in 595 days, about 19½ months, which is why a two-year plan comes in under two a day.

How long is one chapter of the Bible?

A typical chapter takes about two and a half minutes to read silently. We counted every chapter of the World English Bible: the median chapter is 601 words, 65% of the 1,189 chapters take under three minutes at 238 words a minute, and 94% take under five. So a chapter a day is a small and fairly steady amount, with a few exceptions.

• The longest chapter is Psalm 119, at 2,332 words: about 10 minutes of silent reading, or nearly 12 at a relaxed pace. After it come 1 Kings 8, Solomon’s dedication of the temple (2,035 words), then Deuteronomy 28 (1,981) and Numbers 7 (1,916), each a little over eight minutes.
• The shortest is Psalm 117: two verses and 24 words.
• Books differ more than chapters do. A chapter of Psalms averages about 275 words, a chapter of Proverbs about 470 and a chapter of 1 Kings over 1,000. On a chapter-a-day plan, a day in the Psalms can take a minute and a day in 1 Kings more than four.

Is one chapter a day enough?

One chapter a day is enough to read the whole Bible, in a little over three years, and it is a pace many people can keep for a long time. The question underneath is usually depth against coverage. A one-year plan covers more ground each morning; a slower one leaves room to read a chapter twice, look up a name or write a line about what stood out.

Neither is the right answer for everyone, and slow plans are nothing new. Ligonier Ministries, for example, lists a three-year plan called Every Word in the Bible that reads through the Bible one chapter at a time, alternating between the Old and New Testaments.

but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night.

Psalm 1:2, World English Bible

What tends to matter more than the size of the daily reading is whether it fits on a busy day. A pace small enough to keep through a hard week usually carries a reader further than a bigger one that keeps being restarted.

Ways to build a two-year Bible reading plan

A two-year plan can take any shape a one-year plan takes, at a gentler pace. These are the common ones.

• Straight through. Genesis to Revelation in order, about 1.6 chapters a day. It needs no printed schedule, but the Old Testament is 929 of the 1,189 chapters, so at this pace Matthew arrives about 19 months in.
• Old and New Testaments together. Split the days so both testaments finish together: about 1.3 Old Testament chapters a day and a New Testament chapter roughly every three days. Blue Letter Bible prints a two-year “OT & NT Together” plan of this kind, which it describes as a slower pace than its one-year version.
• Psalms and Proverbs alongside. The Two-Year Bible Reading Plan on Ligonier’s list reads the Old and New Testaments once and Psalms and Proverbs four times, so those 181 chapters come round about every six months. Each day carries more than a straight reading would.
• A one-year plan at half speed. Any dated one-year plan becomes a two-year plan if you take each day’s reading over two days. Ligonier lists the length of the M’Cheyne plan as one or two years.
• Weekdays, with the weekend open. About 2.3 chapters each weekday, with Saturday and Sunday for rest or for catching up.

If you would rather pick your own start date and finishing day, the reading plan calculator builds a day-by-day plan for any canon and any pace, to print or save.

Reading the Bible chronologically in two years

A chronological plan works at two years just as well as at one, because putting the books in a different order does not change how many chapters there are: it is still about 1.6 a day for the Protestant Bible. The simplest way to get one is to take a one-year chronological plan and read each day’s portion over two days.

“Chronological” means two different things, and plans use both. Usually it means the order of events, with books such as the prophets and many of the psalms moved to sit beside the history they belong to. A plan in the order the books were written is a different sequence again. Our guide to reading the Bible chronologically compares the two. In either one, as in a straight reading, the Gospels come after most of the Old Testament, so at two years they arrive well into the second year.

Missing days on a two-year plan

Over 730 days, some days will be missed, and on a slow plan a missed day costs very little because there is so little on each one. A missed week at 1.6 chapters a day is about 11 chapters. Spread over the next month, that is less than half a chapter extra a day; spread over what is left of the plan, it barely shows.

Another option is to carry on from wherever you are and let the finishing date move by a week. On a dated paper plan, that means reading in order and ignoring the dates. A third is to read today’s date and come back to the gap later. Our guide to catching up on a reading plan goes through each way without starting over.

One year, two years or three?

The simplest way to choose is by the minutes you could give on an ordinary busy day, rather than on a good one.

• About 11 minutes a day: one year, at 3.3 chapters. Our guide to reading the Bible in a year covers the plans and the hard stretches.
• About 7 minutes: eighteen months, at 2.2 chapters.
• About 5 minutes: two years, at 1.6 chapters.
• 3 to 4 minutes: three years at 1.1 chapters, or one chapter a day for 3 years and 3 months.

A pace can change along the way, too. Moving up from 1.6 chapters a day to 2.2 only means reading a little more from that day on, and slowing down means reading a little less.

A chapter or two at a time, the whole Bible is about two years away.

Questions people ask

Is reading one chapter of the Bible a day enough?

It is enough to read all of it. One chapter a day takes the Protestant Bible from Genesis to Revelation in 1,189 days, a little over three years. Most chapters take under three minutes, which leaves time to read slowly, reread or write a line about what you read. Ligonier Ministries lists a three-year plan, Every Word in the Bible, that reads one chapter at a time.

How long does it take to read the Catholic Bible at a chapter a day?

The 73-book Catholic Bible has 1,334 chapters, so one chapter a day takes 1,334 days, about 3 years and 8 months. To finish it in two years, read 1.8 chapters a day, about six minutes. Over three years it is 1.2 chapters a day.

Can I read the Bible chronologically in two years?

Yes. A chronological plan changes the order of the reading, not the number of chapters, so two years is still about 1.6 chapters a day for the Protestant Bible. Any one-year chronological plan stretches to two years if you take each day's reading over two days.

Can I read the Bible in two years reading only on weekdays?

Yes, at about 2.3 chapters each weekday, roughly seven and a half minutes. Two years holds about 521 weekdays against the Protestant Bible's 1,189 chapters, and the weekends stay free for rest, catching up or reading on. For the Catholic Bible it is 2.6 chapters a weekday.

How long does one chapter of the Bible take to read?

About two and a half minutes for a typical chapter. By our count of the World English Bible, the median chapter is 601 words, 65% of chapters take under three minutes at an average silent pace, and 94% take under five. The longest, Psalm 119, takes about ten minutes; the shortest, Psalm 117, is two verses.

Sources

1. 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.
2. World English Bible, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
3. King James Version, verse-per-line edition (public domain), eBible.org
4. Bible Reading Plans, Ligonier Ministries
5. OT & NT Together 2-Year Plan, Blue Letter Bible (PDF)