How Many Chapters in the Bible? Full Count by Book
The Bible has 1,189 chapters across 66 books. That splits into 929 chapters in the Old Testament and 260 in the New Testament.
Total: 1,189 chapters Old Testament: 929 chapters across 39 books New Testament: 260 chapters across 27 books
Those figures are for the Protestant Bible. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include additional books and so run to higher totals, which the Catholic Bible section covers.
If you came for the number, that is it. If you came because you are building a reading plan, a study schedule or a memorization goal, the rest of this page is for you: the chapter count for every one of the 66 books in a single table, which books are longest and shortest, and what those numbers mean for what you read next.
Table of contents
- How many chapters are in the Bible?
- How many chapters are in each book of the Bible
- What is the longest book in the Bible by chapters?
- The shortest books of the Bible
- Books of the Bible from shortest to longest
- What the chapter counts mean for your reading plan
- Where the chapter divisions came from
- Frequently asked questions
How many chapters are in the Bible?
There are 1,189 chapters in the Bible. When people ask the question, they almost always mean the 66-book Protestant Bible, and that is the number this page uses throughout. Cru’s summary of the Bible’s structure gives the same figure, along with the 929 and 260 split.
The total is not a separate fact you have to take on trust. It is simply the sum of the chapters in all 66 books, and the table further down publishes every one of them so you can add them up yourself.
One thing worth knowing before the numbers pile up: chapter divisions were not part of the original documents. They were added by editors centuries after the texts were written. The count is a fact about how Bibles are printed, not about the books themselves, which is why different traditions can print the same text and arrive at different totals.
How many chapters are in the Old Testament and New Testament?
The Old Testament has 929 chapters and the New Testament has 260.
| Testament | Books | Chapters | Share of total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Old Testament | 39 | 929 | About 78 percent |
| New Testament | 27 | 260 | About 22 percent |
| Whole Bible | 66 | 1,189 |
That 78 percent is the single most useful number on this page for anyone planning to read front to back. Roughly four out of every five chapters you read will be in the Old Testament, and most people who start at Genesis have no idea that is the shape of the journey.
How many chapters are in the Catholic Bible?
A Catholic Bible runs to roughly 1,334 chapters across 73 books. The word “roughly” is doing real work there, and every page that gives you a firm number is overstating what is known.
The difference in the canon itself is straightforward. Catholic Bibles include the deuterocanonical books, which Protestant Bibles do not: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch. Catholic Bibles also include longer Greek forms of Esther and Daniel. Orthodox canons include those books and several more again. These are different canons held by different traditions, each with its own history, and the chapter totals follow from the canon rather than the other way round.
Why the Catholic total moves: the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel are chaptered differently in different printings. Some editions fold them into the existing chapters, others set them out separately. So the total genuinely varies by edition, and 1,334 is a good working figure rather than a fixed one.
| Tradition | Books | Chapters |
|---|---|---|
| Protestant | 66 | 1,189 |
| Catholic | 73 | About 1,334, varies by edition |
| Orthodox | Varies by jurisdiction | Higher again, and not a settled figure |
| Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) | 24 | Same text as the Protestant Old Testament, grouped into fewer books |
The Tanakh line is worth a second look, because it makes the whole point about chapter counts. The Hebrew Bible contains the same material as the Protestant Old Testament. It is simply divided into 24 books rather than 39, with the twelve minor prophets counted as one book and Samuel, Kings and Chronicles each counted as one instead of two. Same words, different filing system.
How many chapters are in each book of the Bible
Here is the number of chapters in each book of the Bible, all 66 in canonical order. The chapters column sums to 1,189, so you can check the total yourself rather than taking it from us.
| Book | Testament | Section | Chapters |
|---|---|---|---|
| Genesis | Old | Law | 50 |
| Exodus | Old | Law | 40 |
| Leviticus | Old | Law | 27 |
| Numbers | Old | Law | 36 |
| Deuteronomy | Old | Law | 34 |
| Joshua | Old | History | 24 |
| Judges | Old | History | 21 |
| Ruth | Old | History | 4 |
| 1 Samuel | Old | History | 31 |
| 2 Samuel | Old | History | 24 |
| 1 Kings | Old | History | 22 |
| 2 Kings | Old | History | 25 |
| 1 Chronicles | Old | History | 29 |
| 2 Chronicles | Old | History | 36 |
| Ezra | Old | History | 10 |
| Nehemiah | Old | History | 13 |
| Esther | Old | History | 10 |
| Job | Old | Poetry | 42 |
| Psalms | Old | Poetry | 150 |
| Proverbs | Old | Poetry | 31 |
| Ecclesiastes | Old | Poetry | 12 |
| Song of Songs | Old | Poetry | 8 |
| Isaiah | Old | Prophets | 66 |
| Jeremiah | Old | Prophets | 52 |
| Lamentations | Old | Prophets | 5 |
| Ezekiel | Old | Prophets | 48 |
| Daniel | Old | Prophets | 12 |
| Hosea | Old | Prophets | 14 |
| Joel | Old | Prophets | 3 |
| Amos | Old | Prophets | 9 |
| Obadiah | Old | Prophets | 1 |
| Jonah | Old | Prophets | 4 |
| Micah | Old | Prophets | 7 |
| Nahum | Old | Prophets | 3 |
| Habakkuk | Old | Prophets | 3 |
| Zephaniah | Old | Prophets | 3 |
| Haggai | Old | Prophets | 2 |
| Zechariah | Old | Prophets | 14 |
| Malachi | Old | Prophets | 4 |
| Matthew | New | Gospels and Acts | 28 |
| Mark | New | Gospels and Acts | 16 |
| Luke | New | Gospels and Acts | 24 |
| John | New | Gospels and Acts | 21 |
| Acts | New | Gospels and Acts | 28 |
| Romans | New | Letters | 16 |
| 1 Corinthians | New | Letters | 16 |
| 2 Corinthians | New | Letters | 13 |
| Galatians | New | Letters | 6 |
| Ephesians | New | Letters | 6 |
| Philippians | New | Letters | 4 |
| Colossians | New | Letters | 4 |
| 1 Thessalonians | New | Letters | 5 |
| 2 Thessalonians | New | Letters | 3 |
| 1 Timothy | New | Letters | 6 |
| 2 Timothy | New | Letters | 4 |
| Titus | New | Letters | 3 |
| Philemon | New | Letters | 1 |
| Hebrews | New | Letters | 13 |
| James | New | Letters | 5 |
| 1 Peter | New | Letters | 5 |
| 2 Peter | New | Letters | 3 |
| 1 John | New | Letters | 5 |
| 2 John | New | Letters | 1 |
| 3 John | New | Letters | 1 |
| Jude | New | Letters | 1 |
| Revelation | New | Revelation | 22 |
| Total | 66 books | 1,189 |
Counts cross-checked against this per-book list hosted at Southern Nazarene University, which reports the same totals.
What is the longest book in the Bible by chapters?
Psalms, at 150 chapters. It is longest by a wide margin: the runner-up, Isaiah, has 66.
| Rank | Book | Chapters |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Psalms | 150 |
| 2 | Isaiah | 66 |
| 3 | Jeremiah | 52 |
| 4 | Genesis | 50 |
| 5 | Ezekiel | 48 |
| 6 | Job | 42 |
| 7 | Exodus | 40 |
| 8 | Numbers | 36 |
| 8 | 2 Chronicles | 36 |
| 10 | Deuteronomy | 34 |
Here is the part most pages leave out: longest by chapters is not the same as longest overall. Psalms tops the list because it is a collection of 150 separate poems, most of them short, so the chapter count is really a count of individual pieces. By total words, other books close the gap or overtake it. And by how hard it feels to get through, the ranking shifts again.
That is because chapters are not the same size, and some run several times longer than others. Psalm 117 is two verses. Psalm 119 is 176. Treating “one chapter” as a fixed unit of work is convenient, and it is not accurate.
The shortest books of the Bible
Five books have exactly one chapter: Obadiah, Philemon, 2 John, 3 John and Jude. Obadiah is the only one in the Old Testament.
Because those five tie at one chapter each, chapter count cannot rank them, and any list of the shortest books of the Bible has to switch to a different measure. Word count in the original Hebrew and Greek is the usual one. Ranked shortest first:
- 3 John
- 2 John
- Philemon
- Obadiah
- Jude
We are giving the order without exact word counts on purpose. The precise figures that circulate for these five all appear to trace back to a single dataset, and we could not confirm them against a primary source, so publishing the ranking is honest and publishing the numbers would not be.
The useful thing about all five is the same: each is a complete book of the Bible that you can read start to finish in one sitting. If you have never finished a book of the Bible, that is a shorter distance to the first win than most people assume.
Books of the Bible from shortest to longest
Sorted by chapter count rather than canonical order, the shape of the Bible becomes obvious.
| Chapters | How many books | Books |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 5 | Obadiah, Philemon, 2 John, 3 John, Jude |
| 2 to 5 | 19 | Haggai, Joel, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Titus, 2 Thessalonians, 2 Peter, Ruth, Jonah, Malachi, Philippians, Colossians, 2 Timothy, Lamentations, James, 1 Peter, 1 John, 1 Thessalonians |
| 6 to 15 | 15 | Micah, Song of Songs, Amos, Ezra, Esther, Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Nehemiah, Hosea, Zechariah, Galatians, Ephesians, 1 Timothy, 2 Corinthians, Hebrews |
| 16 to 30 | 15 | Mark, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Judges, John, 1 Kings, Revelation, Joshua, 2 Samuel, Luke, 2 Kings, Leviticus, Matthew, Acts, 1 Chronicles |
| 31 to 50 | 9 | 1 Samuel, Proverbs, Deuteronomy, Numbers, 2 Chronicles, Exodus, Job, Ezekiel, Genesis |
| 51 and up | 3 | Jeremiah, Isaiah, Psalms |
Twenty-four of the 66 books have five chapters or fewer. Three books account for 268 chapters between them, nearly a quarter of the Bible. Most of the Bible is short books, and a small handful of long ones carry a disproportionate share of the reading.
What the chapter counts mean for your reading plan
Chapter counts are not trivia. They are the unit of work in every reading plan ever written, whether that plan is one chapter a day or a structured year. Knowing which books are one chapter and which are 150 is the difference between a plan you finish and a plan that quietly dies in month two.
Pace is the other half of the equation, and we have covered how those chapters get spread across a week separately. What follows is about which books, in what order, at what chunk size.
Which books are realistic to start with
The counts point to some obvious starting places, which is why the order you read them in matters more than the totals do.
- The five one-chapter books (Obadiah, Philemon, 2 John, 3 John, Jude). A complete book, start to finish, in a single sitting.
- Short books with a full story arc. Ruth at 4 chapters and Jonah at 4 both have a beginning, middle and end. Philippians at 4 and James at 5 are complete letters.
- Mark at 16 chapters is the shortest Gospel and the fastest route to the whole account of Jesus’ life.
And the trap worth naming plainly: if you start at Genesis 1 and read straight through, you reach Leviticus in about week three. That is 27 chapters of ceremonial law, and it is where the large majority of front-to-back attempts stop. Nothing is wrong with you if that happened. The plan was badly shaped.
How to pace the long books without stalling
- Psalms is a collection, not a narrative. Its 150 chapters do not need to be read in one run, and traditionally it is the book people read alongside something else rather than straight through.
- The long prophets are where linear plans break. Isaiah at 66 chapters, Jeremiah at 52 and Ezekiel at 48 come one after another in the canonical order. Either take them in fixed chunks or pair each with a short book.
- Psalm 119 is one unusually heavy day. At 176 verses it is far longer than the chapters around it, so any plan built on one chapter a day has a spike in it. Expect it rather than being ambushed by it.
The general principle: chapters are not equal units, so any plan measured in chapters per day has uneven days built in. That is completely fine as long as you are picking a plan that expects uneven days rather than one that assumes every chapter costs the same.
Where the chapter divisions came from
The chapter divisions in every modern Bible date to the early 13th century and are conventionally credited to Stephen Langton, a theologian at Paris who later became Archbishop of Canterbury. Others had divided the longer books before him, but Langton’s scheme is the one that stuck and modern chapters descend from it.
Verse numbering came three centuries later. The French printer and scholar Robert Estienne introduced the system still in use, numbering verses in his 1551 Greek New Testament and integrating them into the text of a 1555 Latin Vulgate. He kept Langton’s chapters and restarted the verse numbers at each one.
Both are navigation aids added by editors to make a long text referenceable. That is the real reason different traditions can print the same words and report different chapter totals, and it is also why a chapter break occasionally lands in the middle of a thought.
Frequently asked questions
How many chapters are in the Bible?
The Bible has 1,189 chapters. That total is for the 66-book Protestant Bible, and it breaks down as 929 chapters in the Old Testament and 260 in the New Testament. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include additional books, so their totals are higher.
How many chapters are in the Old Testament?
The Old Testament has 929 chapters across 39 books. That is roughly 78 percent of the whole Bible, which is why a front-to-back reading plan spends most of its time there. Psalms is the longest book at 150 chapters and Obadiah the shortest at one.
How many chapters are in the New Testament?
The New Testament has 260 chapters across 27 books. Matthew and Acts are the longest at 28 chapters each, and four books have only one chapter: Philemon, 2 John, 3 John and Jude. It comes to a little under a quarter of the Bible’s total chapters.
How many chapters are in the Catholic Bible?
A Catholic Bible runs to roughly 1,334 chapters across 73 books, but the exact total varies by edition. The main reason is that the Greek additions to Esther and Daniel are chaptered differently in different printings, so no single number is definitive.
What is the longest book in the Bible by chapters?
Psalms, at 150 chapters, is the longest book of the Bible by chapter count. Isaiah is second at 66, then Jeremiah at 52 and Genesis at 50. Psalms wins because it is a collection of 150 separate poems rather than one continuous work.
What is the shortest book in the Bible?
It depends which measure you use. Five books tie for the fewest chapters, with one each: Obadiah, Philemon, 2 John, 3 John and Jude. By word count in the original languages, 3 John is the shortest book in the Bible, followed by 2 John.
Which books of the Bible have only one chapter?
Five books have exactly one chapter: Obadiah in the Old Testament, and Philemon, 2 John, 3 John and Jude in the New Testament. Each one is a complete book you can read from start to finish in a single sitting.
Reading them, not just counting them
The counts only help once they turn into a habit. 1,189 is a big number and also a completely manageable one, and the hard part was never the arithmetic. It is showing up tomorrow, and the day after.
Manna is an iOS Bible reading app that keeps track of where you are so you do not have to, one chapter at a time. If you would rather something else kept count, that is the whole idea.