How to read the whole Bible in a year, and why the order matters
A Bible-in-a-year plan that pairs Old Testament, New Testament, and a Psalm or Proverb each day, with a sample first four weeks and advice for catching up.
The Bible has 1,189 chapters. Spread across 365 days, that is about 3.3 chapters a day, or roughly 15 to 20 minutes of reading. The plan on this page splits those chapters into three streams so that no single day is all law or all genealogy: two chapters from the Old Testament, one chapter from the New Testament on weekdays, and a Psalm or a chapter of Proverbs every other day. Read that way, you finish Genesis to Malachi, Matthew to Revelation, and all 150 Psalms within the year, and you meet Jesus in the New Testament from the very first week rather than waiting until the autumn.
The order matters because the Bible is one story, and the parts explain each other. Reading the Old and New Testaments side by side lets you see the promise and its fulfillment in the same sitting.
Why read the whole Bible at all
Paul told Timothy that all of Scripture, not a favorite selection of it, is breathed out by God and useful.
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work.
— 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (BSB)
Most of us read the same few books over and over: a Gospel, a handful of Psalms, Romans, perhaps Genesis. That is not wrong, but it leaves most of the Bible unread, and with it most of what God chose to say. Jesus himself treated the whole Old Testament as a book about him.
44 Jesus said to them, “These are the words I spoke to you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about Me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.” 45 Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
— Luke 24:44-45 (BSB)
A year in the whole Bible is the simplest way to let Jesus open your mind to the Scriptures in the way he opened the disciples’ minds. Paul says the older writings were kept so that we would have endurance, encouragement, and hope (Romans 15:4).
How the plan is built
The Old Testament has 929 chapters and the New Testament 260. Psalms and Proverbs together hold 181 chapters, which leaves 748 chapters in the rest of the Old Testament. The plan handles them in three streams.
Stream one: the Old Testament story. Two chapters a day, in Bible order from Genesis to Malachi, skipping Psalms and Proverbs. Two chapters a day for 365 days covers 730 chapters, so on 18 days across the year, mostly in the short chapters of the prophets, you read three. Most Bibles with a reading plan mark these; otherwise, simply read a third chapter whenever the chapters are brief.
Stream two: the New Testament. One chapter a day, Monday to Friday, from Matthew to Revelation. Fifty-two weeks of five chapters comes to 260 exactly, so the New Testament finishes in the last week of the year with the weekends free.
Stream three: a Psalm or a Proverb. One chapter every other day. That gives 183 slots for 181 chapters, so the Psalms run from January to about the end of October and Proverbs fills the last two months. Because Psalm 119 is long, treat it as two days.
A weekday therefore has four chapters and a weekend day has two or three, which is why the weekends are a good place to catch up.
A sample first four weeks
Here is how the plan looks in January. The Old Testament stream begins in Genesis, the New Testament stream begins in Matthew, and the Psalms begin at Psalm 1. Day 1 is a Monday.
| Day | Old Testament | New Testament | Psalm |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Genesis 1–2 | Matthew 1 | Psalm 1 |
| 2 | Genesis 3–4 | Matthew 2 | |
| 3 | Genesis 5–6 | Matthew 3 | Psalm 2 |
| 4 | Genesis 7–8 | Matthew 4 | |
| 5 | Genesis 9–10 | Matthew 5 | Psalm 3 |
| 6 | Genesis 11–12 | ||
| 7 | Genesis 13–14 | Psalm 4 | |
| 8 | Genesis 15–16 | Matthew 6 | |
| 9 | Genesis 17–18 | Matthew 7 | Psalm 5 |
| 10 | Genesis 19–20 | Matthew 8 | |
| 11 | Genesis 21–22 | Matthew 9 | Psalm 6 |
| 12 | Genesis 23–24 | Matthew 10 | |
| 13 | Genesis 25–26 | Psalm 7 | |
| 14 | Genesis 27–28 | ||
| 15 | Genesis 29–30 | Matthew 11 | Psalm 8 |
| 16 | Genesis 31–32 | Matthew 12 | |
| 17 | Genesis 33–34 | Matthew 13 | Psalm 9 |
| 18 | Genesis 35–36 | Matthew 14 | |
| 19 | Genesis 37–38 | Matthew 15 | Psalm 10 |
| 20 | Genesis 39–40 | ||
| 21 | Genesis 41–42 | Psalm 11 | |
| 22 | Genesis 43–44 | Matthew 16 | |
| 23 | Genesis 45–46 | Matthew 17 | Psalm 12 |
| 24 | Genesis 47–48 | Matthew 18 | |
| 25 | Genesis 49–50 | Matthew 19 | Psalm 13 |
| 26 | Exodus 1–2 | Matthew 20 | |
| 27 | Exodus 3–4 | Psalm 14 | |
| 28 | Exodus 5–6 |
By the end of week four you have read all of Genesis, most of Matthew, and fourteen Psalms. The same rhythm continues through the year: keep the Old Testament stream moving two chapters a day, the New Testament stream one chapter each weekday, and the Psalm every other day.
Why the order matters
Reading in three streams is not only about variety. The Old Testament sets up questions that the New Testament answers, and the Psalms give you words to pray while you read both. When you read the sacrifices of Leviticus in February and the letter to the Hebrews in the autumn, the second explains the first. When you read Isaiah’s suffering servant and then a Gospel account of the cross, the two lock together. Leviticus, the book that ends more of these attempts than any other, is worth pushing through for exactly this reason: every sacrifice in it is a lesson the New Testament later applies to Jesus.
The Psalm each day is the plan’s quiet secret. Psalm 1 describes the person the whole plan is trying to form.
1 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or set foot on the path of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers. 2 But his delight is in the Law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. 3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.
— Psalm 1:1-3 (BSB)
Meditating on God’s law day and night is a picture, not a schedule, but a daily Psalm gets closer to it than most of us have ever been.
If a chapter is slow, read it once for the sense and move on. The goal of the first year is coverage and familiarity, not mastery.
What to do when you fall behind
You will fall behind. Everyone does, usually somewhere in Leviticus or in the second week of a busy month. Three rules help.
First, never double up more than one day. If you have missed five days, do not read twenty chapters on Saturday. Read today’s portion, and use the light weekend days to pick up one missed day at a time.
Second, if you are more than two weeks behind, let the missed portion go and rejoin the plan at today’s date. You can read the skipped chapters next year. A plan that has become a debt will not be finished; a plan you rejoin will.
Third, if a stream is dragging, pause that stream only. Many readers find the New Testament and Psalms easy to keep up while the Old Testament story falls behind. Keep the two that are working and catch up the third over the weekends.
God’s mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23), which is a good verse for the day you open the plan again after a gap.
Where Christians differ
Christians agree that the whole Bible is God’s word and profitable. They differ on secondary matters you will meet along the way: how to read the opening chapters of Genesis in relation to science, how the Old Testament law applies to Christians today, and how to interpret prophecy and the book of Revelation. Faithful believers hold several views on each. When you reach one of these passages, note the question, read what the text actually says, and bring the question to your pastor or study group rather than deciding it alone at 6 a.m. on a Tuesday.
Keeping going past January
The plan survives on habit, not enthusiasm. Read at the same time and place, keep your Bible open on the desk rather than shelved, and tell one friend what you are doing so that you can ask each other how it is going. If you can find two or three others to read the same plan, a five-minute conversation each week about the reading will keep all of you moving.
If a whole year feels too far away to begin, start with 30 days in the Gospels or the 14-day plan for beginners, and come back to this one when you are ready. Whatever you choose, pray before you read, expect God’s word to stand when everything else has withered (Isaiah 40:8), and read as part of a local church where the same book is opened every week.