Books of the Bible in Order: All 66, With Chapters

The Old Testament books in order

The Old Testament has 39 books and 929 chapters, in five groups.

Psalms is the longest book by chapters, with 150. Obadiah is the shortest book in the Old Testament, a single chapter of 21 verses. The Song of Songs is also called the Song of Solomon.

The New Testament books in order

The New Testament has 27 books and 260 chapters, in three groups.

Four New Testament books have a single chapter: Philemon, 2 John, 3 John and Jude.

Why the books are in this order

The books aren’t in the order they were written. They’re grouped by kind, so similar books sit together. The Old Testament moves from the law, to Israel’s history, to its poetry and wisdom, to the prophets. The prophets are split by length, not importance: the major prophets are the long books and the twelve minor prophets the short ones. Lamentations sits with the major prophets because it was long linked with Jeremiah.

The New Testament starts with the four Gospels, about Jesus’ life, and Acts, about the first churches. Paul’s letters come next, roughly from longest to shortest: first the nine to churches, Romans to 2 Thessalonians, then the four to individual people, 1 Timothy to Philemon. Hebrews, whose writer isn’t named, follows Paul, then come the letters of James, Peter, John and Jude, and Revelation last.

Some of the oldest books in the New Testament are actually Paul’s letters, such as 1 Thessalonians and Galatians, written around AD 50, before any of the Gospels.

Catholic and Orthodox Bibles

Catholic Bibles have 73 books. Their Old Testament has seven more, often called the deuterocanonical books: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom, Sirach and Baruch, along with longer versions of Esther and Daniel. Orthodox Bibles include these and a few more, such as 1 Esdras, the Prayer of Manasseh and Psalm 151.

The New Testament is the same 27 books in every major church. For how the count came to be, see how many books are in the Bible.

The order of the Hebrew Bible

The Jewish Bible, the Tanakh, has the same books as the Protestant Old Testament, but counts them as 24 and puts them in a different order, in three parts: the Torah, or Law, the Nevi’im, or Prophets, and the Ketuvim, or Writings. Its name comes from the first letters of those three parts. Pairs like 1 and 2 Samuel count as one book, and so do the twelve minor prophets.

The Hebrew Bible ends with 2 Chronicles, not Malachi. Its last words tell of King Cyrus letting the exiles go home to rebuild the temple.

How to memorize the books of the Bible

Learn the groups first, as numbers. The Old Testament goes 5, 12, 5, 5, 12: five books of law, twelve of history, five of poetry, five major prophets and twelve minor prophets. The New Testament goes 4, 1, 13, 8, 1: four Gospels, Acts, Paul’s thirteen letters, eight more letters and Revelation.

1. Learn one group a day, saying it aloud until it flows.
2. Sing it. Many children learn the books to a song, and adults remember songs better than lists too.
3. Watch for the pairs: 1 and 2 Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Corinthians, Thessalonians, Timothy and Peter, and 1, 2 and 3 John.
4. Practice finding books in a printed Bible, using the table of contents to check yourself.

Where to start reading

You don’t have to read the Bible in order. Most people find it easier to start with one of the Gospels. Mark is the shortest, at 16 chapters, and you can read it in an afternoon. Our guide to where to start reading the Bible has a simple plan, and how long it takes to read the Bible has the reading time for each book.

Common questions