Reading the Bible cover to cover: what to expect, book by book

The short answer

Reading the Bible cover to cover means 1,189 chapters from Genesis to Revelation in the 66-book Protestant Bible, about 52 hours of silent reading, or three to four chapters a day for a year. The Old Testament is 929 of those chapters, so Matthew begins more than three-quarters of the way through. The stretches where readers stall are shorter than they feel. All of Leviticus takes about 97 minutes, and Numbers a little over two hours. The 73-book Catholic Bible has 1,334 chapters.

In this guide

1. How long does it take to read the Bible cover to cover?
2. What to expect in each part of the Bible
3. Where readers get stuck, and how long each stretch really is
4. How to get through Leviticus and Numbers
5. When do you reach the New Testament?
6. Is reading the Bible cover to cover a good idea?
7. Habits that carry a cover-to-cover reading to Revelation
8. Questions people ask
9. Sources

Reading the Bible cover to cover means opening at Genesis 1 and reading every chapter in the order your Bible prints it, through to the last page of Revelation. It needs nothing but a bookmark, which is much of its appeal. What trips readers up is the shape rather than the length: the law, the histories and the prophets arrive in long runs before the first Gospel, and the stretches of lists and instructions come early. Knowing where they are, and how long each one really takes, makes them much easier to plan for.

• 1,189chapters from Genesis to Revelation
• 52 hoursof silent reading at an average pace
• 929Old Testament chapters before Matthew
• 97 minthe whole Book of Leviticus

How long does it take to read the Bible cover to cover?

About 52 hours of silent reading for the 66-book Protestant Bible, at the average adult pace of 238 words a minute, or about 62 hours at a relaxed 200. That is 1,189 chapters and, in the World English Bible, a modern public-domain translation, about 750,000 words. The 73-book Catholic Bible has 1,334 chapters and takes about 60 hours.

Divided into days, the total gets small quickly. At a relaxed pace, a year is a little over three chapters a day, about ten minutes; two years is 1.6 chapters, about five minutes; one chapter a day finishes in three years and three months. Our guide to how long it takes to read the Bible times every canon and every book, and the guide to reading the Bible in a year puts a date on each hard stretch of a cover-to-cover year.

What to expect in each part of the Bible

Read in order, the Protestant Bible falls into eight parts that read very differently: long chapters of story and law at the start, short poems in the middle, and a New Testament that is about a fifth of the chapters. The table gives each part’s length, its reading time at 238 words a minute, the weeks it fills at a one-year pace, and how far through the whole Bible you are when it ends.

Chapters are not the same size from part to part, which is why weeks with similar chapter counts feel so different. A Gospel chapter averages about 900 words, the longest of any part, and a psalm about 275. So a one-year plan that hands out the same three or four chapters every day reads for under five minutes a day through the Wisdom books, on average, and about twelve through the Gospels. Our guide to the divisions of the Bible explains how the books are grouped into these eight parts.

The Law: Genesis to Deuteronomy

Genesis, and Exodus as far as the arrival at Sinai in chapter 19, are almost all story: creation, the flood, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, the plagues and the crossing of the sea. From there the narrative slows. Exodus 20 to 23 gives the Ten Commandments and the first laws, chapters 25 to 31 give the instructions for the tabernacle, and chapters 35 to 40 describe it being built, often in the same words.

Leviticus is almost entirely instruction, Numbers mixes census lists with some of the best-known stories of the wilderness, and Deuteronomy is Moses’ farewell speeches. The Law’s chapters run about a quarter longer than the Bible’s average, so its eight weeks are among the fuller days of a year’s reading.

History: Joshua to Esther

Joshua to Esther is Israel’s long story, from entering the land to the return from exile: the conquest, the judges, Ruth, Saul and David, Solomon’s temple, and two kingdoms and their fall. Most of it reads quickly, with a few exceptions. Joshua 13 to 21 divides the land tribe by tribe, about 25 minutes of boundaries and town names. Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 each list the families who came home, a few minutes apiece.

The longest list is at the start of 1 Chronicles: nine chapters of genealogies, beginning “Adam, Seth, Enosh,” before Chronicles tells much of the story of Samuel and Kings a second time, at points in nearly the same words. At about 13½ hours, History is the longest of the eight parts to read.

Wisdom: Job to Song of Songs

Job is 42 chapters, almost all of them poetry, around one question, why a blameless man suffers, and the speeches of Job and his friends turn that question over many times. It takes about an hour and a quarter. After it the pace changes completely. The 150 Psalms take under three hours in all, a little over a minute each on average, so a one-year plan moves through them in about six and a half weeks.

Psalm 119 is the one long exception, at 176 verses and about ten minutes. Proverbs follows with 31 chapters of sayings, then Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs, 20 chapters between them.

The Prophets: Isaiah to Malachi

Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations and Ezekiel make 171 chapters of oracles, laments and visions, about eight hours of reading and seven and a half weeks of a one-year plan. Jeremiah turns to narrative for the siege and fall of Jerusalem, and Ezekiel closes with nine chapters on a temple seen in a vision, measured gate by gate, and the land around it (chapters 40 to 48).

Daniel brings back story for six chapters, the lions’ den among them. The twelve shorter prophets from Hosea to Malachi, 67 chapters and about two hours in all, go quickly: Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai and Malachi each take under ten minutes.

The New Testament: Matthew to Revelation

Then the reading changes again. The four Gospels are 89 chapters and about five and a half hours; Mark, the shortest, takes about an hour. Acts follows the first church from Jerusalem to Rome in 28 chapters. Then come 21 letters, 13 of them opening with Paul’s name, and each can be read in under 45 minutes. Revelation’s 22 chapters of visions close the Bible in under 50 minutes. The whole New Testament is about 12 hours of reading, against the Old Testament’s 40.

Every book at a glance

Where readers get stuck, and how long each stretch really is

The stretches where readers tend to stall are mostly lists and instructions, and most of them are short. Each list takes under an hour, all of Leviticus about an hour and a half and Numbers a little over two, and none of them fills more than 11 days of a one-year plan. The one long stretch is the run of prophets from Isaiah to Ezekiel.

One chapter is worth knowing about in advance. Numbers 7 has 89 verses, more than any chapter in the Protestant Bible except Psalm 119, and most of it is the same list of gifts read out twelve times, as each tribe’s leader brings his offering on his own day. It takes about eight minutes. Its closing verses add up all twelve lists, so reading the first closely and the other eleven more quickly still takes in every gift.

How to get through Leviticus and Numbers

Leviticus is easiest to read with its outline in hand. It is a book of instructions for a people living around a sanctuary, with very little story, and its 27 chapters fall into five parts:

• Chapters 1 to 7: the offerings. The burnt, meal, peace, sin and trespass offerings, each described in turn and then summed up at 7:37. About 21 minutes.
• Chapters 8 to 10: the priests. Aaron and his sons are ordained, and in chapter 10 two of them, Nadab and Abihu, die after offering “strange fire”.
• Chapters 11 to 15: clean and unclean. Food, childbirth, skin disease, mildew in a house and discharges from the body. About 23 minutes.
• Chapter 16: the Day of Atonement, the one day a year the high priest enters the Most Holy Place.
• Chapters 17 to 27: holiness in everyday life. Leaving the edges of a field for the poor and the foreigner, paying wages the same day, honest weights, the feasts in chapter 23 and the jubilee year in chapter 25. About 40 minutes.

Two things make it easier. The first is to look out for chapter 19, where among the laws about harvests, wages and measures is this verse:

You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people; but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am Yahweh.

Leviticus 19:18, World English Bible

Jesus names it as the second commandment, after loving God with all your heart (Matthew 22:37–39), and Paul and James quote it again (Romans 13:9, Galatians 5:14, James 2:8). The second is to read Leviticus beside the Letter to the Hebrews, which reads the high priest’s yearly entry into the Most Holy Place in the light of Christ (Hebrews 9) and calls the law “a shadow of the good to come” (Hebrews 10:1). Hebrews has 13 chapters, so one chapter of Hebrews for every two of Leviticus brings the two to an end at about the same time.

Numbers: lists with stories between them

Numbers is longer, 36 chapters and a little over two hours, but more of it is story than its reputation suggests. The lists come in blocks: the census and the layout of the camp in chapters 1 to 4, the twelve days of offerings in chapter 7, a second census in chapter 26 and the stages of the route out of Egypt in chapter 33.

Between them come the quails (chapter 11), the spies and the forty years in the wilderness (13 and 14), Korah’s rebellion (16), water from the rock (20), the bronze serpent (21), Balaam and his donkey (22 to 24) and the daughters of Zelophehad (27). Chapter 6 closes with the blessing Aaron and his sons are given for Israel: “Yahweh bless you, and keep you.” At a one-year pace, Leviticus and Numbers together take about 19 days.

Can you skip Leviticus and come back?

Yes. Coming back to Leviticus later costs exactly what it would cost now, 27 chapters and about an hour and a half, and the rest of the Bible can be read in the meantime. What you set aside is background the New Testament takes for granted. When Mary and Joseph offer “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons” at the temple (Luke 2:24), that is Leviticus 12:8, and when Jesus sends a healed man to the priest with “the things which Moses commanded” (Mark 1:44), he means Leviticus 14. So if you skip ahead, the New Testament is a natural point to have come back by.

Mark the gap when you skip. A note of the chapter where you stopped, or a record kept by chapter rather than by date, shows exactly what is left, and the gap closes whenever you return to it, next week or next year.

When do you reach the New Testament?

At a one-year pace you reach the New Testament on day 286, because Matthew 1 is chapter 930 of 1,189. The Old Testament holds 78% of the Protestant Bible’s chapters and 77% of its words, so most of a cover-to-cover reading comes before the first Gospel, at any pace. This is the day Matthew begins, and the day Revelation ends, at five common paces:

A Catholic Bible, read in its own order, reaches Matthew a little later: at chapter 1,075 of 1,334, or about day 294 of a one-year pace. In the order the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Bible prints them, Tobit and Judith follow Nehemiah, then Esther and 1 and 2 Maccabees; Wisdom and Sirach follow the Song of Songs; and Baruch follows Lamentations. So a cover-to-cover reading meets these deuterocanonical books, which Protestants usually call the Apocrypha, in their places among the others rather than in a block.

Is reading the Bible cover to cover a good idea?

It is the simplest way to read the whole Bible: no list to follow, one bookmark, and every book read whole in the order your Bible prints it. The cost is the wait for the New Testament and the long runs of law and prophecy, which arrive on their own. If those runs are where a reading has stopped before, another route covers the same 1,189 chapters with more variety each day.

None of the three is the right one for everybody, and switching partway costs nothing when what you count is chapters. Our guide to the best order to read the Bible compares the routes in more detail, and how to read the Bible chronologically explains the two different things a “chronological” plan can mean.

How many people have read the whole Bible?

About 1 in 5 American adults, by their own account. In a Lifeway Research survey of 1,200 Americans in August 2024, 13% said they had read the entire Bible and another 9% had read it more than once; 12% more had read almost all of it. Lifeway’s 2016 survey of 1,000 Americans found nearly the same: 11% once and 9% more than once. Reading it through is less common than it might seem, and it takes about ten minutes a day for a year.

Habits that carry a cover-to-cover reading to Revelation

A cover-to-cover reading is long, so what helps most is whatever makes an ordinary day easy and a missed one cheap.

• Choose a daily amount that fits a busy day. Three chapters is about ten minutes and one chapter about three, with days in the Law or the Gospels running a little longer.
• Let a missed day move the finish. Pick up at the next unread chapter rather than doubling up, and the last day moves one day later. If you are already a few weeks behind a dated plan, our guide to catching up on a Bible reading plan has several ways to close the gap without starting over.
• Read lists at the pace of a list. Census tables, genealogies and boundary lists are part of the reading, and a quicker pass through them is still a reading.
• Keep count by chapter, not by date. A record of which chapters you have read stays true after a quiet week, and it shows how close the next part is.

Genesis to Revelation is 1,189 chapters, and every one of them is read the same way: the next one, on the next day you read.

Questions people ask

Is reading the Bible cover to cover a good idea?

It is the simplest way to read the whole Bible, with one bookmark and every book read whole in the order your Bible prints it. The cost is that 78% of the chapters come before the first Gospel, so the law, the histories and the prophets arrive in long runs. If those runs are where you tend to stop, a plan that reads some of both testaments each day covers the same chapters with more variety.

Can I skip Leviticus?

Yes, and nothing is lost if you come back to it. Leviticus is 27 chapters and about an hour and a half of reading, roughly eight days of a one-year plan. Mark the chapter where you left off. The New Testament is a natural point to have come back by, since it takes for granted the priests, sacrifices and feasts that Leviticus describes.

Why is Leviticus so hard to read?

Mostly because it is unfamiliar. Leviticus is instructions for priests and for a people living around a sanctuary, with very little story, and the same phrases repeat from law to law. It reads more easily with its outline in mind, which is the offerings, the priests, clean and unclean, the Day of Atonement, and then holiness in everyday life.

How many people have read the whole Bible?

In a Lifeway Research survey of 1,200 American adults in August 2024, 13% said they had read the entire Bible and another 9% had read it more than once, about 1 in 5 in all. Another 12% said they had read almost all of it. Lifeway's 2016 survey of 1,000 Americans found nearly the same share, 11% once and 9% more than once.

Should I read the Bible cover to cover or chronologically?

Either covers the same 1,189 chapters. Cover to cover follows your own Bible's contents page and reads each book whole. A chronological plan rearranges the chapters into the order the events happen, so prophets sit beside the kings they spoke to, but you follow the plan's printed list. Cover to cover is easier to keep from your own Bible; a chronological plan suits readers who want the history in sequence.

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. Lifeway Research (2025). Americans judge the Good Book more positively, but still often by its cover.
5. Lifeway Research (2017). Americans are fond of the Bible, don't actually read it.
6. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: the books of the Bible (New American Bible, Revised Edition)