Working with Bibles

Overview

Here we'll answer many of the common questions developers have when they first start working with Bibles in API.Bible.

How do I find the Bibles I have access to?

There are a few ways you can find out which Bibles you have access to.

All Bibles

This is the fastest way to get a full list of your Bibles (including copyright and CC/Public Domain Bibles). Call the /bibles endpoint to see a full list of your Bibles as well as valuable metadata for each Bible:

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curl --request GET \
  --url https://rest.api.bible/v1/bibles \
  --header 'Content-Type: text/plain' \
  --header 'api-key: API_KEY'

Here is how that might look in Javascript:

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const response = await fetch("https://rest.api.bible/v1/bibles", {
  headers: {
    "Content-Type": "text/plain",
    "api-key": "API_KEY",
  },
});
const data = await response.json();

Pro Tip: In the response you'll get from this call, you'll notice two key/value pairs of interest:

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"id": "de4e12af7f28f599-01",
"dblId": "de4e12af7f28f599",

The id field represents this particular Bible. Throughout our docs we refer to this often as the bible_id, and it is used in many other calls, such as /v1/bibles/{bible_id}/verses/JHN.3.16. The dblId is similar to id but relates multiple Bibles under one umbrella (an example would be multiple editions of a Bible sharing the same dblId but having different id's). If you see the same Bible name appear several times in /bibles, each one is a separate digital edition or format. Use the bible_id that corresponds to the edition you plan to reference.

Copyright Bibles

If you'd just like to see and edit the full list of copyright Bibles you have access to:

1. Log in and visit your dashboard (if you are unsure where your dashboard is, click "API Product" in the navigation, then "Dashboard").
2. Click "Plan" in the sub navigation (below your app name)
3. Your copyright Bibles will be listed after your plan details, below the header "Additional Bibles".
4. You can edit this list by clicking "Edit Plan", then "Edit Bible Licenses".

Tip: If you want to call a particular Bible, you'll want to copy the bible_id listed in the "Additional Bibles" section on your "Plan" page. Click the dropdown arrow next to a Bible to view its bible_id's.

CC and Public Domain Bibles

All plans have access to the same list of CC and Public Domain Bibles. You can view the full list here. Be sure to first set the "License" filter to "Open Access" and "Standard License".

Tip: You can see the bible_id for each Bible on this page as well, though you'll need to be logged in to do so.

Now that I have my Bible ID, what next?

With your bible_id in hand, you can now make many helpful requests:

• Use /bibles/{bible_id}/books to list the books in your specific Bible.
• Use /bibles/{bible_id}/chapters or /bibles/{bible_id}/verses to retrieve text.
• Explore parameters like include-notes, include-titles, and include-chapter-numbers for richer output.

For more API calls, visit our API Reference.