Listen to the Bible
Every chapter of the Bible can be heard here, in 4 complete translations — 327 hours of reading in all. It is free, it needs no account, and there is nothing to install or download: the audio streams as it plays.
The reading is not a separate product from the text. Open a chapter, start it, and the verse being spoken is washed in gold on the page, so the reading can be followed by eye. The page stays where you put it, which leaves you free to read ahead or turn back while the voice goes on.
The translations
Each translation is read complete — every book, every chapter — and the narration follows the words on your screen. Choose a different translation and you hear that translation, rather than one text being read over another.
| Translation | Chapters | Hours | |
|---|---|---|---|
| King James Version (KJV) | 1,189 | 83.7 | Start in Genesis 1 |
| American Standard Version (ASV) | 1,189 | 82.2 | Start in Genesis 1 |
| Bible in Basic English (BBE) | 1,189 | 81.2 | Start in Genesis 1 |
| World English Bible (WEB) | 1,189 | 80.2 | Start in Genesis 1 |
The book introductions
Biblion's commentary opens each book of the Bible with an introduction, and all 66 of them are read aloud too — 9.6 hours in a third voice, kept for the commentary's own prose rather than for Scripture. They are read as continuous writing, not as an outline. Start with the commentary.
The original words
Beyond the readings, 14,197 Hebrew and Greek words are spoken one at a time — every entry in Strong's lexicon that has a word behind it. Where a Strong's number appears in the text, the entry behind it carries a small play control, so a word can be heard as well as read. Look up a Strong's number.
About the voices
The reading is synthesized rather than recorded by a person, and that is worth knowing before you press play. Each translation keeps one settled voice throughout, read a little under conversational speed, with a short pause between verses. Verse numbers are not spoken, so what you hear is the text running on as it does on the page.
Names are what a synthetic voice usually makes a mess of, and they were not left to it. Each name was given a pronunciation of its own, worked out from the Hebrew and the Greek and written down once, so that Nebuchadnezzar sounds the same in Jeremiah as in Daniel, and Melchizedek the same in Hebrews as in Genesis. Where a name has a long-settled English form, that form was kept.
Every book
Each of these opens at the book's first chapter, where the reading can be started from the Options menu.
| Beginnings | Genesis · Exodus · Leviticus · Numbers · Deuteronomy |
|---|---|
| Judges | Joshua · Judges · Ruth |
| Kingdoms | 1 Samuel · 2 Samuel · 1 Kings · 2 Kings |
| Chronicles | 1 Chronicles · 2 Chronicles · Ezra · Nehemiah · Esther |
| Poetry | Job · Psalms · Proverbs · Ecclesiastes · Song of Solomon |
| Prophets | Isaiah · Jeremiah · Lamentations · Ezekiel · Daniel |
| Minor Prophets | Hosea · Joel · Amos · Obadiah · Jonah · Micah · Nahum · Habakkuk · Zephaniah · Haggai · Zechariah · Malachi |
| Messiah | Matthew · Mark · Luke · John · Acts |
| Paul's Letters | Romans · 1 Corinthians · 2 Corinthians · Galatians · Ephesians · Philippians · Colossians · 1 Thessalonians · 2 Thessalonians · 1 Timothy · 2 Timothy · Titus · Philemon · Hebrews |
| General Letters | James · 1 Peter · 2 Peter · 1 John · 2 John · 3 John · Jude |
| Revelation | Revelation |