How To Read The Bible In a Year: A Daily Reading Plan Guide

Introduction

Reading the entire Bible can be compared to running a marathon: if you run too fast, you may end up getting tired before reaching the finish line. On the other hand, if you maintain a steady and sufficient minimum pace on your journey, you will certainly achieve your goal, one step at a time.

In this article, we will demonstrate how many chapters and verses you need to read per day to complete reading your entire Bible within a year.

You will see how this calculation is made, and you will know why Zoe Psomí’s Bible Reading Tracker app is the best tool to help you complete your full Bible reading within a year (or within any other timeframe you set).

Annual Bible Reading Plan

Because this is a relatively long-term task (one year long), and because the Bible is a large book with many pages, there are many obstacles that a person may encounter on their annual Bible reading journey, and the probability of giving up reading halfway through is also very high.

It is not enough, therefore, to just start reading the Bible randomly and disorganizedly, and still expect that, one day or somehow, the Bible reading will finally be successfully completed before the end of the year.

Reading the entire Bible is a task that requires much more attention, planning, dedication, consistency, and discipline to be carried out successfully.

Characteristics of a Good Bible Reading Plan

To succeed in your annual Bible reading, you will need to have a good reading plan, such as the one we offer for free in our Bible Reading Tracker app.

A good Bible reading plan will allow you to create your new Bible reading with very well-defined start and end dates.

Bible Reading Start Date

It is the date on which you plan to start your Bible reading. This date can be today, if you are starting your Bible reading now, but it can also be a different date if you have already started your reading or will start it in the future.

People generally like to start their annual Bible readings at the beginning of each year, but this is not a rule, it’s just a personal choice. This will vary greatly based on your preferences, availability, and various circumstances. Feel free to start your Bible reading on the date you can or prefer.

The most important thing is that you read the Bible, regardless of the day you start your reading.

Bible Reading Completion Goal

Your Bible reading completion goal is the date by which you plan to have completed your Bible reading after starting it.

In the case of an annual Bible reading, the completion goal date will be exactly one year after the reading start date. For example, if you start your reading on January 1st of a certain year, it is expected that you will complete this reading by December 31st of that same year at the latest.

If you did not start reading the Bible on the first day of the year, the rule is the same: the completion goal will be for approximately the same day of the month but in the following year. For example, assuming I started my annual Bible reading  on the date I am writing this article (03/24/2025), the completion goal date for this reading would be approximately 03/24/2026.

Minimum Bible Reading Pace

Given that the Bible has a finite number of testaments, books, chapters, and verses, we can easily estimate and plan how much of the Bible you need to read, at a minimum, each day, so that you can complete reading your entire Bible within a year (or any other period you determine).

We will now analyze the structure of the Bible’s content and use the available reading time (365 days) to calculate how many chapters and verses you need to read every day to finish your Bible reading within the expected timeframe of one year.

Structure of the Holy Bible

The Bible is divided and structured into the following basic units of content:

• 2 Testaments: at the highest level, the Bible is divided into two distinct parts called the Old Testament and the New Testament. Each testament is composed of a set of Books.
• 66 Books: in total, the Bible has sixty-six Books, with 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 books in the New Testament.
• 1,189 Chapters: each book of the Bible is composed of a set of chapters. The Bible has a total of one thousand one hundred and eighty-nine chapters, which is the number we were able to identify during our research while developing the initial version of the Bible Reading Tracker app. Each chapter, in turn, is subdivided into a set of verses.
• 31,103 Verses: the verse is the smallest unit of content organization in the Bible, but it is the one that appears in the largest quantity, totaling thirty-one thousand one hundred and three verses in the Holy Bible.

Calculation of the Minimum Annual Bible Reading Pace

We will now demonstrate how much of the Bible you should read each day on your annual Bible readings to finish them in a year.

This demonstration is merely illustrative and we believe it can help you better understand how our Bible reading tracker app works and how it can help you track your Bible readings.

Don't worry, however, about learning to do these calculations yourself. Our Bible Reading Tracker app already does this calculation automatically for you, so that you can maintain your minimum reading pace steady and sufficient to complete your Bible readings within their expected timeframe.

Maximum Expected Duration of Annual Bible Readings

In the case of an annual Bible reading, we have a period of generally 365 days as the deadline for completing the reading (with the exception of leap years, which have one extra day for you to read the Bible).

Minimum Annual Bible Reading Pace in Number of Chapters Per Day

The minimum reading pace in number of chapters per day can be calculated by dividing the total number of chapters in the Bible by the number of days you have available to complete the Bible reading.

For annual Bible readings, the minimum Bible reading pace will be:

1,189 chapters ÷ 365 days = 3.26 chapters per day.

Rounding up, we can conclude that the pace of your annual Bible reading needs to be at least 4 chapters a day. In other words, you need to read at least four chapters a day to be able to complete your full Bible reading within a year.

Because the calculation is rounded up, Zoe Psomí’s Bible Reading Tracker app ensures that, if you follow its recommendation for minimum daily reading pace, you will be able to complete your full Bible reading even before the scheduled completion goal date.

This also helps you prevent and recover from possible reading delays, which are often unavoidable.

Minimum Annual Bible Reading Pace in Number of Verses Per Day

Similarly to what we did for chapters, the minimum Bible reading pace in number of verses can be calculated by dividing the total number of verses in the Bible by the number of days you have available to carry out your Bible reading.

For annual Bible readings, the minimum Bible reading pace will be:

31,103 verses ÷ 365 days = 85.21 verses per day.

Rounding down, we can conclude that the pace of your annual Bible reading needs to be at least 85 verses per day for you to be able to read the entire Bible within a year.

Zoe Psomí’s Bible Reading Tracker App

As we mentioned, you can use our Bible Reader app to carry out your annual Bible readings and also Bible readings of any other duration you desire.

Read our official article on how to use the Bible Reading Tracker app and start your Bible reading of the year right now!

Conclusion

Annual Bible reading is a long process, but it doesn’t have to be tiring.

Zoe Psomí’s Bible Reading Tracker app allows you to run this marathon of faith gradually, one step at a time, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, testament by testament, until you reach your noble goal of completing the full reading of God’s Word.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

1 Corinthians 9:24