Reading the whole Bible takes about 51 hours, assuming a silent reading pace of 250 words a minute. Spread across a year, that is about 8.5 minutes a day. Listening at Berean's narration pace of 155 words a minute takes about 82 hours, or 13.5 minutes a day. These are estimates for moving through the text. Questions, notes, and rereading need their own time.
In short
The ESV text bundled in Berean contains 767,456 words, about 767,000 in round numbers.
A year of reading averages about 2,100 words a day. At an assumed 250 words a minute, allow about 8.5 minutes for the text.
Listening at 155 words a minute averages about 13.5 minutes a day. A chapter a day takes 1,189 days.
How long is the Bible, really?
The Bible has 66 books: 39 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. The ESV bundled in Berean contains 1,189 chapters and 31,086 verses. Its 767,456 words are the basis for every time estimate here. Another translation can have a different word count, so treat these figures as estimates for this text.
A chapter is a useful place to stop, but it is not a fixed amount of reading. Psalm 119 has 176 verses; Psalm 117 has two. Reading either one counts as a chapter, although they ask for very different amounts of time. A plan measured only in chapters will have short days and long ones.
It also helps to distinguish reading through the Bible from studying every passage in detail. You might read a paragraph once today and return to it tomorrow with a question. Psalm 119:105 describes the place of God's word through the image of a lamp and a path. There is no pace requirement in that verse.
105Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
How long per day to finish in a year?
Divide 767,456 words by 365 days and you get about 2,100 words each day. Divide that daily amount by 250 words a minute and you get about 8.4 minutes, rounded here to 8.5. The same calculation over the whole text gives about 51 hours. The reading pace is an assumption, not a measurement of how you read.
Your own pace matters more than the average. Try reading for a few days without a timer running in the foreground. Notice where you slow down, whether you stop to write, and whether the daily selection fits the time you have. Then choose a place in your day with room for those pauses.
A chapter a day is another reasonable way to organize reading, but it is a longer schedule. With 1,189 chapters, it takes 1,189 days, about three years and three months. That does not make it a worse plan. It answers a different question: how much do you want to read each day, rather than when do you want to reach the end?
Which books take the longest?
By word count in the bundled ESV, these are the eight longest books. Chapters are included because they help explain why a chapter count alone can be misleading. A book with more chapters does not always have more words than one with fewer chapters.
| Book | Words | Chapters |
|---|---|---|
| Psalms | 43,184 | 150 |
| Jeremiah | 40,775 | 52 |
| Ezekiel | 37,547 | 48 |
| Genesis | 36,613 | 50 |
| Isaiah | 35,705 | 66 |
| Luke | 25,301 | 24 |
| Acts | 23,830 | 28 |
| Matthew | 23,335 | 28 |
Word counts from the ESV text bundled in Berean
At the same assumed pace of 250 words a minute, Psalms takes about 173 minutes and Genesis about 146 minutes. Those totals can help you make room in a schedule. They do not tell you how long to spend thinking about a particular psalm or scene.
At the other end, Philemon has 468 words and Jude has 614. A short book may fit into one sitting. If you want a small starting point, length can help you choose. It need not decide how much attention you give the book once you are there.
What if you listen instead?
At Berean's narration pace of 155 words a minute, 767,456 words take about 82 hours. Across 365 days, that comes to about 13.5 minutes each day. This estimate assumes continuous narration. Pausing to ask about a passage or playing a verse again adds time, as it should when you need it.
Listening can fit a walk or a quiet stretch of the day when you would otherwise leave the text closed. You can also read along. Berean displays the words as they are read aloud, so you can keep your place in the passage while listening.
If you lose the thread, return to the part you remember. There is no need to treat the audio as something you must keep up with. Reading and listening can share the same plan, and you can use whichever fits that day's circumstances.
Does the order matter?
Order changes which books you meet together. Berean follows the Life Journal reading plan, which runs for 365 days and places Old and New Testament readings side by side. It assigns two to seven chapters a day, most often three or four. Day one is Genesis 1, Genesis 2, and Luke 1. Day 365 is Revelation 19 to 22.
That structure gives you a next reading without asking you to choose a book each morning. Reading straight through is also an option. Whichever order you choose, leave room to read the surrounding passage when a verse raises a question. The account of the Bereans in Acts 17 offers an example of receiving a message with interest and checking it against Scripture.
What is a useful pace for you?
Start with the estimate, then make room for attention. In Joshua 1:8, Joshua is told to meditate on the Book of the Law and act according to it. Those words belong to his particular calling in the passage. They should not be turned into a promise that completing a reading schedule will make your own plans succeed.
8This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Choose a daily amount you can return to, and keep a note of what you want to revisit. If you miss a day, look at the next reading and decide when to resume. For an example of reading one verse with the sentences around it, see what John 3:16 means in context. The Berean blog collects more notes like it, with the passages quoted in full.