How Long Does It Take to Read the Bible?
· 7 min read
Reading the whole Bible aloud takes roughly 70–75 hours; reading it silently at an average pace takes closer to 55–60 hours. Spread over a year that is about 12 minutes a day, which is why one-year plans are realistic for most people even though the book is long.
The short version
The Bible runs to roughly 775,000 words in most English translations. At a typical silent reading speed of 200–250 words per minute, that's about 52–65 hours of reading. Read aloud — the number most often quoted, because it comes from audio Bible recordings — it's closer to 70–75 hours.
That total is the useful number, because everything else is just division. Seventy hours over 365 days is under 12 minutes a day. Over 90 days it's about 47 minutes a day. The book isn't long in a way that makes a year plan unrealistic; it's long in a way that makes a two-week plan unrealistic.
How long each section takes
The Bible is very unevenly distributed, which matters when a plan stalls. The Old Testament is roughly three quarters of the total, and the Pentateuch and prophets carry most of the weight. Approximate read-aloud times:
| Section | Approx. words | Approx. read-aloud time |
|---|---|---|
| Pentateuch (Genesis–Deuteronomy) | ~150,000 | ~14 hours |
| History (Joshua–Esther) | ~200,000 | ~18 hours |
| Wisdom & poetry (Job–Song of Solomon) | ~95,000 | ~9 hours |
| Prophets (Isaiah–Malachi) | ~150,000 | ~14 hours |
| Gospels & Acts | ~100,000 | ~9 hours |
| Letters & Revelation | ~80,000 | ~7 hours |
| Whole Bible | ~775,000 | ~70 hours |
Daily minutes by plan length
The same 70 hours, divided different ways. These are averages — actual daily readings vary, and most one-year plans front-load Genesis and Psalms rather than distributing evenly.
| Plan length | Minutes per day | Feels like |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year | ~12 min | One sitting, before or after coffee |
| 2 years | ~6 min | Genuinely hard to miss; good first attempt |
| 90 days | ~47 min | A committed block; usually a season, not a habit |
| 30 days | ~2h 20m | A retreat or sabbatical pace, not everyday life |
Individual books, for when you want a smaller win
Reading one whole book start to finish is often a better first goal than a whole-Bible plan, because you get the shape of an argument instead of disconnected daily fragments. Some realistic single-sitting options:
- Mark — about 1 hour 20 minutes; the fastest-moving Gospel
- John — about 2 hours; the most commonly recommended starting point
- Philippians — about 15 minutes; short enough to reread weekly
- Psalms — about 4 hours 30 minutes; almost never read in one sitting, and doesn't need to be
- Genesis — about 3 hours 45 minutes
- Isaiah — about 3 hours 40 minutes; the longest prophet
Why plans fail even though the math works
Twelve minutes a day is not a demanding number, which is exactly why the arithmetic is misleading. One-year plans rarely collapse from lack of time; they collapse in Leviticus and Numbers around week six, when the reading stops feeling like narrative and starts feeling like inventory.
Two things help. First, know in advance where the hard stretch is, so hitting it feels expected rather than like evidence you've lost interest. Second, pick a plan that interleaves — a chapter of Old Testament with a Psalm or a Gospel passage — so no week is entirely genealogy. The total time is unchanged; the odds of finishing are not.
A note on the numbers
Word counts differ by translation — word-for-word translations like the NASB run longer than thought-for-thought ones like the NLT, and the difference across common English translations is a few percent, not a few hours. Audio Bible run times vary with narrator pace, which is why published figures range from about 70 to 80 hours. Treat every number above as a good planning estimate, not a stopwatch measurement.
Common questions
How long does it take to read the Bible in a year?
About 12 minutes a day, based on roughly 70 hours of total read-aloud time divided across 365 days. Most one-year plans assign three to four chapters daily.
How long does it take to read the New Testament?
About 16–18 hours read aloud, or roughly 3 minutes a day over a year. At 30 minutes a day you would finish in around five weeks.
What is the fastest way to read the whole Bible?
A 90-day plan at roughly 47 minutes a day is the fastest pace most people sustain. Anything shorter generally requires setting aside two or more hours daily, which works as a retreat but rarely as a habit.
How long does it take to read one chapter?
Around three to four minutes for an average chapter, though this varies widely — Psalm 117 takes seconds, Psalm 119 takes about fifteen minutes.