How to ‘Read’ a Bible Verse

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What’s a Bible Verse?

Flip through almost any Bible and you’ll find them in the center or side columns or maybe even at the bottom of the page.

You’ll see the name of a book or an abbreviated form of the name and some numbers flowing behind.

It’s called a Bible verse.

If you are going to study the Bible, you’ll need to understand how to read and look up those verses. Their purpose is to direct you to exact locations within Scripture.

The Basic Anatomy of a Bible Verse

All verses from the Bible are made up of the same three parts: a book name, a chapter number, and a verse number(s).

Let’s take a look at the example below.

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• The word ‘Daniel’ is the name of the book. (Note that sometimes, due to lack of space, the book name is abbreviated. So instead of the word ‘Daniel’, you may see ‘Dan’. Some table of contents list the abbreviation for each book. It just depends on your Bible.)
• The number ‘2’ following the name of the book is the chapter number.
• The number ‘21’ following the semicolon is the verse in that particular chapter.
• The semicolon separates the book chapter from the verse number.
• The Bible verse is read or spoken like this: Daniel two twenty-one.
• To find the verse, you’d turn to the book of Daniel, go to the second chapter and then scroll the page until you’ve reached verse 21.

All verses in the Bible share the same format.

Now, let’s try one that has multiple verses.

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• ‘John’ is the name of the book.
• The number ‘3’ is the chapter number.
• The semicolon separates the book chapter from the verse numbers.
• There are two verses in this Bible reference. The number ‘16’ is the beginning verse. The number ‘21’ is the ending verse number. So, this reference is directing you to read the verses starting at 16 and ending at verse 21.
• The dash between the numbers lets you know to read all of the verses that are between the first and ending verse numbers.
• It is read or spoken like this: John three sixteen through twenty-one.
• To find these verses, you’d first turn to the book of John and flip the pages until you found chapter three. Then you’d scroll that page until you found verse sixteen. Start reading. Then you’d need to continue reading until you have reached the end of verse twenty one.

Practice Makes Progress

The more you look up different bible verses, the better and faster you will become at it. Hope this helps!

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Thanks for your time. Thanks for reading.