🔑 Abbreviations

📐 Structure

The Bible contains two main parts:

• Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament, see table 1)
• New Testament (see table 3).

Occasionally, the Daily Office Lectionary also includes readings from extra sources called “deuterocanonical works” (or the Apocrypha, see table 2).

Each part contains several books. The books further divide into chapters, and chapters into verses.

🤔 How biblical references work

The biblical authors didn’t write with chapters and verses in mind.

In fact, the Bible has existed without these divisions longer than with them. The chapters we use today are attributed to Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1205. And the French publisher Robert Etienne came up with the verse numbers from 1551 to 1553.

The numbers are tools that help refer to specific passages of the Bible.

📚 Books

When referring to an entire book of the Bible, the book name is usually spelled out.

When referring to part of a book, the book name is usually abbreviated. Not only does abbreviating book names save space, but it also makes the names similar in length. These abbreviations are often a better fit for lists and tables than full book names.

The Lectionary.app uses the abbreviations developed by the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) rather than the system that’s more unique to the Book of Common Prayer.

📑 Chapters

When referring to a large section of a book, the abbreviated book name appears first, followed by a chapter number.

🔖 Verses

When referring to verses within a chapter, the chapter number is followed by a colon and a space (: ), then one or more verse numbers.

Consecutive verses are connected with an en dash (–).

Noncosecutive verses are separated by a comma followed by a space (, ).

Sometimes a reference includes verses from more than one chapter. When the verses from multiple chapters aren’t consecutive, the chapter break is shown by a semicolon followed by a space (; ).

🛠️ Putting it all together

Most references are simple.

For your convenience, we’ve added links to BibleGateway so you can read all of them on a single page.

😊 Example 1

For example, Matt 6:7–15 refers to the gospel of Matthew (from the New Testament), chapter 6, verses 7 through 15, when Jesus is teaching on prayer.

⁷“When you pray, don’t pour out a flood of empty words, as the Gentiles do. They think that by saying many words they’ll be heard. ⁸Don’t be like them, because your Father knows what you need before you ask. ⁹Pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,
may your name be revered as holy.
¹⁰Bring in your kingdom
so that your will is done on earth as it’s done in heaven.
¹¹Give us the bread we need for today.
¹²Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you,
just as we also forgive those who have wronged us.
¹³And don’t lead us into temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.

¹⁴“If you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ¹⁵But if you don’t forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your sins.

Matt 6:7–15 CEB

😃 Example 2

For a more complex example, Rev 21:1–4, 22–22:5 refers to the book of Revelation (also from the New Testament), chapter 21, verses 1 through 4, then verses 22 of the same chapter through chapter 22, verse 5, when John of Patmos describes the final images of his vision.

21Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. ²And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
⁴he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

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²²I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

22Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ²through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; ⁴they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

Rev 21:1–4, 22–22:5 NRSVue

Again, most references are straightforward like Example 1.

⁉️ Other punctuation

Any reading may be lenthened. Suggested lengthenings are shown in parentheses ().

Brackets ([]) show psalms which may be omitted. In general, the psalms are arranged so you can read all 150 of them every seven weeks (averaging three psalms per day). If you want to follow that pattern, then don’t skip the bracketed psalms.

🥰 Emoji

The Lectionary.app also uses several emoji. They’re fun. Like letter abbreviations, they save space. We made a key (see table 4) to help show the symbolism we have in mind. We want their function to add to the fun instead of taking away from it.