What is the longest book in the Bible? Psalms, Jeremiah and the top 10 ranked
The longest book in the Bible is Psalms: 150 chapters, 2,461 verses, 43,760 words in the KJV. See why Jeremiah ties it by words and the top 10 ranked.
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The longest book in the Bible is Psalms. In the King James Version it has 150 chapters, 2,461 verses and 43,760 words, more than any other book by every simple measure. The close runner-up is Jeremiah, with 42,654 words. If you remove the titles printed above many psalms, the two books are almost exactly tied in English words.
That near tie is why some articles say "Jeremiah is the longest book by word count". It isn't a myth, and it isn't quite the whole story either. The answer depends on what you count and whether the psalm titles count.
Here are our exact numbers, computed from the KJV text in the Bible Academy app, the top 10 longest books ranked, and the longest books in the New Testament.
The 10 longest books in the Bible, ranked
We counted every word in every verse of the KJV text in the app with a short script, splitting on spaces, so hyphenated names count as one word and the psalm titles are included. Here is the top 10 by word count.
| Rank | Book | Chapters | Verses | Words (KJV) | Words (ASV) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Psalms | 150 | 2,461 | 43,760 | 43,426 |
| 2 | Jeremiah | 52 | 1,364 | 42,654 | 42,247 |
| 3 | Ezekiel | 48 | 1,273 | 39,401 | 39,297 |
| 4 | Genesis | 50 | 1,533 | 38,262 | 38,087 |
| 5 | Isaiah | 66 | 1,292 | 37,036 | 36,642 |
| 6 | Numbers | 36 | 1,288 | 32,896 | 32,031 |
| 7 | Exodus | 40 | 1,213 | 32,685 | 32,177 |
| 8 | Deuteronomy | 34 | 959 | 28,352 | 27,952 |
| 9 | 2 Chronicles | 36 | 822 | 26,069 | 25,806 |
| 10 | Luke | 24 | 1,151 | 25,939 | 25,656 |
Now the same books ranked by other measures, because the order changes:
| Measure | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chapters | Psalms (150) | Isaiah (66) | Jeremiah (52) | Genesis (50) | Ezekiel (48) |
| Verses | Psalms (2,461) | Genesis (1,533) | Jeremiah (1,364) | Isaiah (1,292) | Numbers (1,288) |
| Words | Psalms (43,760) | Jeremiah (42,654) | Ezekiel (39,401) | Genesis (38,262) | Isaiah (37,036) |
Isaiah is a good example of why one measure isn't enough. It's second by chapters (66), but only fifth by words: its chapters are short. Ezekiel is the opposite: 48 chapters, yet third by words, because its chapters are long and detailed.
The ASV column shows that translations shift the totals by a few hundred words but don't change the top five.
Psalms or Jeremiah? The honest answer
Psalms wins by chapters and verses by a wide margin. Words are where it gets interesting.
Many psalms open with a title (scholars call it a superscription), such as "A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son" (Psalm 3:1). In the app's KJV text the title is printed as part of verse 1 (Hebrew Bibles often number it as a verse of its own). By our count, those titles add up to about 1,050 words across 116 psalms. Psalm 119 also has 22 Hebrew letter headings, like "ALEPH" and "BETH".
Take those out and the comparison looks like this:
| Count (KJV) | Psalms | Jeremiah |
|---|---|---|
| Words, as printed | 43,760 | 42,654 |
| Words, without psalm titles and letter headings (our estimate) | about 42,670 | 42,654 |
| Letters, as printed | 178,169 | 174,337 |
| Letters, without psalm titles (our estimate) | about 173,900 | 174,337 |
So without the titles, the two books are within a few words of each other, and Jeremiah has slightly more letters. Our title detection is an estimate (a script looking for openings like "A Psalm of" or "To the chief Musician"), so treat the difference as a tie.
That's why you'll find both answers online. If someone says "Jeremiah is the longest book by words", they're likely counting the text without psalm titles, or counting in another language or translation. If someone says "Psalms", they're counting the book as printed. Both have a case. For a quiz, Psalms is the safe answer, because it is the longest by chapters, by verses and by words as printed.
If you'd like to compare them yourself, both books are in the app's Bible reader in the KJV and the ASV, with highlights and notes.
Why Psalms is so long
Psalms isn't one book in the way Jeremiah is. It's a collection of 150 songs and prayers written over centuries and gathered into five smaller "books" (Psalms 1 to 41, 42 to 72, 73 to 89, 90 to 106, and 107 to 150). Each of the five ends with a short blessing, for example Psalm 41:13 and Psalm 72:19.
Many writers contributed. By our count, 73 psalm titles in the KJV mention David. Others name Asaph, the sons of Korah, Solomon, Heman, Ethan, and Moses, whose prayer opens Psalm 90. The end of the second collection even says so:
The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.
Psalms also contains both the longest chapter in the Bible (Psalm 119, 176 verses) and the shortest (Psalm 117, 2 verses). Our article on the longest chapter in the Bible explains how Psalm 119 is built as an acrostic.
Why Jeremiah is so long
Jeremiah is long for the opposite reason: it's mostly one prophet's messages over about forty years, through the reigns of the last kings of Judah, the siege of Jerusalem and the beginning of the exile (Jeremiah 1:1-3).
The book even tells us how part of it was written, and rewritten. God told Jeremiah to put his messages on a scroll (Jeremiah 36:2). King Jehoiakim cut it up and burned it, piece by piece. So Jeremiah dictated it again to his scribe Baruch, and the second edition came out longer:
Then took Jeremiah another roll, and gave it to Baruch the scribe, the son of Neriah; who wrote therein from the mouth of Jeremiah all the words of the book which Jehoiakim king of Judah had burned in the fire: and there were added besides unto them many like words.
Jeremiah mixes poetry and prose: sermons, laments, symbolic actions (a ruined belt, a potter's clay, a yoke), letters to the exiles, and dramatic stories of the prophet's arrest. It also holds a verse many people have on their walls, Jeremiah 29:11, which in context is a promise to the exiles in Babylon that God had not abandoned them.
The longest books in the New Testament
The New Testament's longest book is Luke, by both words and verses.
| Rank | Book | Chapters | Verses | Words (KJV) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Luke | 24 | 1,151 | 25,939 |
| 2 | Acts | 28 | 1,007 | 24,245 |
| 3 | Matthew | 28 | 1,071 | 23,684 |
| 4 | John | 21 | 879 | 19,094 |
| 5 | Mark | 16 | 678 | 15,166 |
Matthew and Acts tie for the most chapters (28 each), but Luke has more words and verses than either.
The same author wrote Acts (both books are addressed to Theophilus: Luke 1:3, Acts 1:1), and early church tradition names him as Luke, so together his two volumes come to 50,184 words in the KJV by our count. That's more than the 13 letters that name Paul as their author, which total 43,490 words. Add Hebrews to Paul's column (its author isn't named, and Christians have long debated who wrote it) and Paul's side reaches 50,395. Either way, Luke, a companion of Paul and a careful historian, wrote more than a quarter of the New Testament (about 28% of its words).
Among Paul's letters, the longest by words is 1 Corinthians (9,480), just ahead of Romans (9,438). Romans has 16 chapters and 433 verses, 1 Corinthians 16 chapters and 437 verses.
How long does it take to read the longest books?
At a steady 200 words per minute, a comfortable read-aloud pace, here's roughly how long each takes:
| Book | Words (KJV) | Reading time at 200 words a minute |
|---|---|---|
| Psalms | 43,760 | about 3 h 40 min |
| Jeremiah | 42,654 | about 3 h 35 min |
| Ezekiel | 39,401 | about 3 h 15 min |
| Genesis | 38,262 | about 3 h 10 min |
| Luke | 25,939 | about 2 h 10 min |
Psalms is rarely read straight through, and it doesn't need to be. Five psalms a day takes you through all 150 in a month. Jeremiah is best read a few chapters at a time, with a short overview first so you know where you are in the story. Our Jeremiah book summary includes the BibleProject video for the book.
For a whole-Bible view, see how long it takes to read the Bible. The full Bible is 790,892 words in our KJV count.
If you'd like a plan that paces long books for you, the app's reading plan lets you choose 1 to 5 chapters a day and tracks your progress and streak.
Test what you remember from the longest books
Long books are where details slip away. Here's a quick 3-question quiz on Psalms from the app's question bank:
Quick quiz: Psalms
Which word opens the first psalm?
The book opens with “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.” “Why” opens Psalm 2. Psalms 1:1
Which psalm begins with “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want”?
It is Psalm 23, a psalm of David: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Psalms 23:1
Which psalm begins with “Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name”?
Psalm 103, by David, opens this way and urges us not to forget “all his benefits.” Psalms 103:1–2
There are many more questions like these in Bible Academy, each with its explanation and verse. Start free, no card needed.
You can take the full Psalms quiz or the Jeremiah quiz, and every answer is explained with the verse it comes from. For the other end of the scale, see the shortest book in the Bible, where 2 John and 3 John have their own tie.
How we counted
- Text: the KJV in the Bible Academy app (31,102 verses, 1,189 chapters) and, for comparison, the ASV.
- Words: split on spaces, so hyphenated words and names with apostrophes count as one. Psalm titles and Psalm 119's 22 letter headings (such as "א ALEPH.") are included as printed.
- Letters: alphabetic characters only, no spaces or punctuation.
- Psalm titles: found by a script that looks for typical openings ("A Psalm of", "To the chief Musician", "Maschil", "Michtam", "A Song", "A Prayer"), plus the long title of Psalm 18. It's an estimate, accurate to a few dozen words.
Printed KJV editions vary slightly in spelling and punctuation, so other counts may differ by a handful of words. The rankings don't change. The full per-book table is in our guide to how many chapters and verses are in the Bible.
Frequently asked questions
What is the longest book in the Bible?
Psalms is the longest book in the Bible. In the King James Version it has 150 chapters, 2,461 verses and 43,760 words, the most of any book by each measure. Jeremiah is a close second by words with 42,654. Without the titles above individual psalms, the two books are almost tied in English word count.
Is Jeremiah longer than Psalms?
Only by some measures. Psalms has far more chapters (150 against 52) and verses (2,461 against 1,364), and more words as printed in the KJV (43,760 against 42,654). If you remove the roughly 1,050 words of psalm titles and the 22 letter headings in Psalm 119, the word counts are nearly equal and Jeremiah has slightly more letters. That's why some sources call Jeremiah the longest by words.
What is the longest book in the New Testament?
Luke is the longest book in the New Testament, with 24 chapters, 1,151 verses and 25,939 words in the KJV. Acts is second with 24,245 words. Matthew and Acts have the most chapters, 28 each. Luke and Acts were written by the same author, traditionally Luke, so together they make up more than a quarter of the New Testament.
What is the longest book in the Old Testament?
Psalms is the longest book in the Old Testament and the whole Bible: 150 chapters, 2,461 verses and 43,760 words in the KJV. After Psalms come Jeremiah (42,654 words), Ezekiel (39,401), Genesis (38,262) and Isaiah (37,036). Genesis is second by verse count, with 1,533 verses.
How many chapters are in Psalms?
Psalms has 150 chapters, each one a separate psalm, and 2,461 verses in the KJV. It is divided into five collections: Psalms 1 to 41, 42 to 72, 73 to 89, 90 to 106 and 107 to 150. It contains both the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119 with 176 verses, and the shortest, Psalm 117 with 2 verses.