How Many Words Are in the Bible?

How many words are in the Bible depends on translation. The King James Version contains about 783,000 words across 66 books. The New International Version (NIV) is slightly shorter at around 717,000 words.

The longest book is Psalms (about 43,000 words in KJV). The shortest is 3 John, only 299 words.

Word counts vary between translations because modern versions use simpler vocabulary and shorter sentence structures. The Message paraphrase runs longer; the ESV sits close to KJV length.

For comparison, the average novel is 80,000–100,000 words. The Bible is roughly 8–10 novels long depending on translation.