Bible API

Every verse, chapter, book, Strong's entry and Verse of the Day on this site is available as plain JSON over HTTP — free, no API key required within fair limits. The text is the King James Version (1769) with the Apocrypha, public domain.

Quick start

Pick an endpoint below — every row has a Try it link and a ready-made URL you can copy.
Append ?format=json, a .json suffix, or send an Accept: application/json header — all three work.
Read the JSON. No signup, no key, no cost.

curl — fetch John 3:16

curl 'https://getholybible.com/book/57/3/16?format=json'

Base URL: https://getholybible.com
Version: append ?v=kjv (default) or ?v=kjvno (Norwegian machine translation) to the text endpoints.
Book numbering: 1–80 in the 1611 order — Genesis is 1, Malachi 39, the Apocrypha 40–53, Matthew 54, John 57, Revelation 80. See the Bible page.
Caching: Bible text responses are immutable and carry an ETag — send If-None-Match and a matching copy costs you nothing (304).

Machine-readable: OpenAPI 3.1

The whole API is also described as a single OpenAPI 3.1 document — endpoints, parameters, schemas, headers and error shapes: /openapi.json. Point Postman, Insomnia, Swagger Editor, Redoc or a code generator at it and you are done.

curl — fetch the spec

curl 'https://getholybible.com/openapi.json'

Bible text

Endpoint	Returns
`/?format=json`	Version metadata, the 80-book index, and today's Verse of the Day.	Try it
`/book/{book}?format=json`	Book metadata and its chapter numbers.	Try it
`/book/{book}/{chapter}?format=json`	Every verse in the chapter, each with `ref`, `text` and per-word `words` (surface, italics, words of Jesus, Strong's tag).	Try it
`/book/{book}/{chapter}/{verse}?format=json`	A single verse — same shape as one chapter verse.	Try it
`/passage?ref=…`	A passage by free-form reference — `John 3:16`, `John 3:16-21`, `Psalm 23`, `John 3-4`, `1 Corinthians 13`. Caps at 500 verses.	Try it
`/random`	A random verse from the canonical books (66 books — never the Apocrypha).	Try it
`/versions`	Every translation the corpus offers — id, name, language, scope, license, source.	Try it

Search & study

Endpoint	Returns
`/search?q=…&page=N&format=json`	Full-text search across the whole Bible (25 per page), with highlighted snippets.	Try it
`/strongs/{G\|H}{number}?format=json`	A Strong's dictionary entry: lemma, transliteration, KJV renderings, definition, derivation.	Try it
`/popbv?format=json`	The popular-verses collection: seeded favourites ranked with real reader visits.	Try it

Verse of the Day

Endpoint	Returns
`/votd?format=json`	Today's Verse of the Day: reference, verse text, artwork URL, prev/next days.	Try it
`/votd/{Y-m-d}?format=json`	The Verse of the Day for any date in the archive.	Try it
`/votd/archive/{year}?format=json`	Every day of that year with its reference — the whole archive in one response.	Try it

Account

Endpoint	Returns
`/me`	Who the request was authenticated as — requires a token (see rate limits).	Get a token
`POST /token`	Mint an API token with email + password — no browser needed, ideal for apps.	Example

curl — mint a token, then use it

curl -X POST https://getholybible.com/token \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"email":"you@example.com","password":"…","name":"my app"}'

# → {"ok":true,"token":"ghb_…"}   (shown exactly once)

curl https://getholybible.com/me -H 'Authorization: Bearer ghb_…'

curl — with a token

curl 'https://getholybible.com/me' -H 'Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN'

Code examples

curl

curl 'https://getholybible.com/search?q=armour%20of%20God&format=json'

JavaScript (Node 18+)

const res = await fetch('https://getholybible.com/votd?format=json');
const votd = await res.json();
console.log(votd.ref, '→', votd.verse.text);

PHP

$verse = json_decode(file_get_contents('https://getholybible.com/book/57/3/16?format=json'), true);
echo $verse['text'];
foreach ($verse['words'] as $w) {
    if (isset($w['s'])) echo " {$w['t']}={$w['s']}";
}

Note: responses are served same-origin; browsers calling the API from another site need a server-side proxy or the bulk download.

Response fields

verse object (John 3:16, shortened)

{
  "book": 57, "chapter": 3, "verse": 16,
  "ref": "Jhn 3:16",
  "text": "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, …",
  "words": [
    { "t": "For", "s": "G1063" },
    { "t": "God", "s": "G2316" },
    { "t": "so", "s": "G3779" }, …
  ]
}

t: the word itself
i: true when supplied by translators — italicized in print
r: true for words of Christ, printed in red
s: Strong's number — look it up at /strongs/{s}

API tokens & rate limits

Without a token: 120 requests/minute and 10,000/day per IP address.
With a token: 240 requests/minute and a per-token daily quota you choose (up to 50,000 — active supporters can go unlimited). Mint one at Settings → API tokens and send it as Authorization: Bearer <token>.
Every API response carries X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining and X-RateLimit-Reset headers. Exceed a limit and you get 429 with Retry-After.

Errors

Status	When	Body
`401`	Missing, invalid or revoked token.	`{"error": "…", "status": 401}`
`404`	Unknown book, chapter, verse, Strong's number, or date outside the archive range.	`{"error": "…", "status": 404}`
`429`	Over a rate limit — see the `Retry-After` header.	`{"error": "…", "status": 429}`
`503`	Empty verse pool (should never happen).	`{"error": "…", "status": 503}`

Bulk, no requests at all

Prefer one download to a thousand calls? The complete dataset — every verse with Strong's tags, the Strong's dictionaries, and book metadata — ships as a single SQLite file at /download, public domain, updated with the site.

Text: King James Version (1769) with Apocrypha, public domain, courtesy of CrossWire and eBible.org. Strong's dictionaries: OpenScriptures JSON edition (CC-BY-SA). Questions or something looks wrong? Contact us.