Do you read the Bible a lot? Or perhaps you've never read it but plan to someday? Or you wish you could read it but don't have much time?
BusyBible is a little website that generates reading lists for the Bible. Each day it will give you a link to BibleGateway.com so you can read 📖 or listen 🔊 to a few chapters of the Bible. Each chapter will flow automatically into the next in a hands-free way.
So you can hear the Bible read whilst you are:
- 🚗 Commuting
- 🍳 Cooking
- 🥣 Eating breakfast
- 🐕 Walking the dog
- 🏋️ At the Gym
- 🧹 Cleaning
...or generally just busy with life!
Simply create several lists of Bible books (or use one of the preset plans) and set a start date in the settings (defaults to today). Then click "Copy Plan to Clipboard" and bookmark the copied link in your browser. Now every day that link will move a virtual bookmark through each list you have selected and work out the day's readings, as well as giving you two links to either read 📖 or listen 🔊.
Don't worry if that happens, you can go back or forward in the plan by updating the offset setting. To go back a day, set the offset to -1 and update your browser bookmark with the new link. Maybe you have lots of time one day and want to skip ahead, then set the offset to +1 or however many days ahead or behind you are.
There are several English translations (and audio versions) of the Bible available on BibleGateway, at the time of writing three are available on BusyBible. If you don't have any special preference, I recommend the default NIVUK (New International Version with UK spelling), which has an excellent audio Bible by the actor David Suchet. Another option is the ESV (English Standard Version) read by Max McLean, or there is the NIV in a dramatized edition with multiple actors and added background music.
If English isn't your first language, there are also options (as of now) for:
- Mandarin (CCB)
- Spanish (NVI)
- German (HOF)
- Portuguese (NVI-PT)
- French (BDS)
- Arabic (NAV)
- Romanian (NTLR)
- Russian (NRT)
- Thai (TNCV)
- Swedish (SFB or the more recent SFB15)
Whichever translation you select, be sure to update your browser bookmark using "Copy Plan to Clipboard" and then pasting the link generated into your browser bookmark system. Then your choice will be kept whenever you open that link.
There is also a "Copy Permalink to Clipboard" option. Unlike the "Copy Plan to Clipboard" button this will copy a link to a specific set of readings, so anyone opening it in future will get the same readings and translation as you see today, unless they change things of course! Or you can right click the BibleGateway links and just copy those.
You can easily delete books from any of the lists on the right in the settings menu by clicking the ❌. You can also increase or reduce the number of lists by pressing the + or - next to the "How many lists" selector. To add books to a list, click the ones you want to add one at a time in the "List of Books" menu on the left. You should see little circled numbers appear next to them. Once you have the books you want for a list, select the number of that list in the "list: " selector, and press either "Append To" to add the books to the end of an existing list or "Replace" to delete what is currently in that list first. Repeat for every list you want to edit.
Your changes will be saved as a (very long!) code at the end of the BusyBible URL, so be sure to again press "Copy Plan to Clipboard" and paste the result as a bookmark or favourite in your browser.
Q: Can I have more than one chapter from a list each day? A: I might add this feature, but at the moment this isn't possible.
Q: Can I modify the tool or put it on my own website? A: Yes! The code is all MIT licensed, so you are free to make any changes you want as long as you comply with the relatively permissive license conditions. If you want me to add your changes to the master version on BusyBible.org then you can send me a pull request on GitHub at this address.