The New Testament has 27 books and 260 chapters. Reading silently, you can get through it in about 12 hours; the English audio recordings in Bible Garden run 15 to 19 hours, depending on the narrator, and the four Gospels take 7 to 8½ hours. At one chapter a day, the New Testament takes 260 days; at three a day, under three months. Below you'll find an audio sample, the length of each Gospel for every English narrator, a reading order for your first time through, and a reading plan table.
Listen to the opening of John's Gospel
Here are the first verses of the Gospel of John read by each English narrator in the free Bible Garden app for iPhone and iPad.
Listen to John 1:1–5 read by each narrator
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.
All four recordings cover the whole New Testament, and none has background music. Bob Souer and David read the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), Winfred Henson reads the World English Bible (WEB), and the British edition of the WEB (WEBBE) is read by a narrator the publisher doesn't name. For more about each one, see "Audio Bible Narrators."
While you listen, the app shows the chapter text: the verse being read is highlighted, and the text scrolls on its own.
How long the New Testament and each Gospel take on audio
| Books | Souer (BSB) | David (BSB) | Henson (WEB) | WEBBE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matthew | 2 h 12 m | 2 h 24 m | 2 h 23 m | 2 h 0 m |
| Mark | 1 h 21 m | 1 h 30 m | 1 h 28 m | 1 h 15 m |
| Luke | 2 h 22 m | 2 h 34 m | 2 h 31 m | 2 h 7 m |
| John | 1 h 49 m | 1 h 58 m | 1 h 54 m | 1 h 37 m |
| The four Gospels | 7 h 43 m | 8 h 27 m | 8 h 17 m | 6 h 59 m |
| Acts | 2 h 10 m | 2 h 25 m | 2 h 18 m | 2 h 2 m |
| Paul's letters and Hebrews (14) | 4 h 54 m | 5 h 28 m | 5 h 11 m | 4 h 30 m |
| General letters, James–Jude (7) | 57 m | 1 h 5 m | 1 h 4 m | 53 m |
| Revelation | 1 h 5 m | 1 h 12 m | 1 h 16 m | 59 m |
| Whole New Testament | 16 h 50 m | 18 h 38 m | 18 h 6 m | 15 h 24 m |
Mark is the shortest Gospel: you can hear it in one long evening, or over a week of commutes. The audio Gospels make good company on a drive or a walk: each is a single story, start to finish.
Times are the full length of the app's MP3 files at 1× speed, measured on October 4, 2026.
For the length of each of the 27 books, see "Books of the Bible in Order." To work out how long the whole Bible takes, or when you'll finish at your own pace, use the reading time calculator: you can set it to the New Testament only.
The order of the New Testament books
English Bibles arrange the New Testament like this:
- Gospels and Acts: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts.
- Paul's letters: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon. Hebrews follows them; its author isn't named, and some lists count it with Paul's letters.
- General letters: James, 1 and 2 Peter, 1, 2, and 3 John, Jude.
- Revelation.
Russian Bibles put the general letters right after Acts, ahead of Paul. The books themselves are the same. Bible Garden lists the books in that Russian order in every language, under the headings "Gospels & Acts," "General Epistles," "Paul's Epistles," and "Prophetic," so look for James right after Acts.
Neither order is chronological. Most scholars date 1 Thessalonians to about AD 49–51, making it the earliest surviving book of the New Testament (Wikipedia), and see Mark, written around AD 70, as the earliest Gospel (Wikipedia). The Gospels come first not because they were written first, but because they tell the story everything else depends on: the life of Jesus.
What order to read the New Testament in for the first time
Reading straight through from Matthew to Revelation is a perfectly good plan. But on a first read, many people find it easier when narrative alternates with the denser letters. Here is one route:
- Mark: the shortest Gospel, fast-moving, one event after another.
- Luke, then Acts right after it. They are two volumes of one work, written to the same man. Luke says he set out "to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus" (Luke 1:3), and Acts opens: "In my first book, O Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach" (Acts 1:1; both quotes from the Berean Standard Bible).
- Paul's letters. After Acts, you know who Paul is, where he traveled, and whom he's writing to.
- Matthew and John: the same story from other angles. Matthew gathers much of Jesus' teaching; John records His long conversations.
- Hebrews and the general letters.
- Revelation last: a book of visions and symbols is easier to read once you know the rest of the New Testament.
Well-known plans follow a similar idea. The Navigators' 5x5x5 New Testament plan (one chapter a day, five days a week) starts with Mark and Acts, spreads the Gospels across the year, and ends with Revelation (Navigators plan, PDF).
If the Bible is completely new to you and you'd like to start small, try the 7-day plan with the Gospel of John, then continue with this list.
New Testament reading plan: one month to one year
Pick how many chapters a day you want to read or hear. Minutes are averages: the full New Testament recording divided by 260 chapters, times the chapters per day. Individual chapters run shorter or longer.
| Chapters a day | Days | Souer, min a day | David, min a day | Henson, min a day | WEBBE, min a day |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 260 (about 8½ months) | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 2 | 130 (about 4 months) | 8 | 9 | 8 | 7 |
| 3 | 87 (about 3 months) | 12 | 13 | 13 | 11 |
| 5 | 52 (7½ weeks) | 19 | 21 | 21 | 18 |
| 9 | 29 (a month) | 35 | 39 | 38 | 32 |
Read one chapter on weekdays only, and the New Testament takes a year: 52 weeks of 5 days is exactly 260 reading days. Weekends stay free for catching up on anything you missed. The 5x5x5 plan works the same way and promises 5 minutes a day; in English audio, a chapter averages about 4 minutes.
Bible Garden has no built-in reading plans, but its progress tracking makes any plan easier to follow. A chapter is marked as read automatically once you've listened to 90% of its audio (the default) or scrolled to the end of the text. The Reading Progress screen shows the books you're in the middle of; tap one, and the app offers to open your first unread chapter.
Want to read the whole Bible? In the parallel plan in "How to Read the Bible in a Year," the New Testament runs on days 1–260 alongside the Old Testament. Other well-known plans are compared in "Famous Bible Reading Plans Compared." And if you want your own finish date, the calculator will work it out.
Listen slowly: pauses between verses
The New Testament is dense: a single sentence in one of Paul's letters can be worth a long pause. To keep the audio from turning into background noise, Bible Garden can pause after every verse, paragraph, or section, either for a few seconds or until you tap Play. A 2-second pause after every verse adds about 4½ hours to the New Testament, or about 3 minutes a day on a three-chapter plan. To go back to a phrase, the previous and next verse buttons jump to the exact start of a verse.
All the English recordings are voice only, with no music, so nothing competes with the text.
Audio keeps playing in the background and with the screen off. You need an internet connection to listen: the app can't download recordings for offline use yet.
Multi Reading: a verse in two translations
Bible Garden's signature feature is Multi Reading. Each verse plays in several translations in a row, with a pause in between: for example, first in the Berean Standard Bible read by Bob Souer, then in the World English Bible read by Winfred Henson. Under each verse, the screen shows the same verse in both translations. For more, see "Bilingual Bible App."
This works especially well in the New Testament: the letters are compact, and a second translation often clears up a phrase that's hard to follow the first time. The second translation can also be in another language, Russian or Ukrainian, if you're learning one of them or want to hear Scripture the way your family reads it.
With two translations, listening takes roughly twice as long, so Multi Reading works best for one chapter a day rather than your whole plan.
Bible Garden is free, with no ads or in-app purchases. Right now it runs on iPhone and iPad; a web version and an Android app are in our plans.
Frequently asked questions
How many books and chapters are in the New Testament?
27 books and 260 chapters: four Gospels, Acts, 13 letters of Paul, Hebrews, seven general letters, and Revelation. Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Bibles share the same New Testament.
How long does it take to listen to the New Testament?
In Bible Garden, the English recordings run about 15½ to 18½ hours: 15 h 24 m for the WEBBE, 16 h 50 m for Bob Souer's BSB, 18 h 6 m for Winfred Henson's WEB, and 18 h 38 m for David's BSB. The four Gospels alone take 7 to 8½ hours. Reading silently takes about 12 hours.
Which Gospel should I read or listen to first?
Mark: it's the shortest, with 16 chapters and about 1½ hours of audio. If the Bible is new to you, John is another good start, with many of Jesus' own conversations.
Can I read the New Testament in 30 days?
Yes: that's 9 chapters a day, about 32–39 minutes of English audio. In 90 days, it's three chapters a day, about 11–13 minutes.
Does Bible Garden have a New Testament reading plan?
There are no built-in plans, but a simple plan is easy to keep on your own: three chapters a day takes 87 days at 11–13 minutes of audio, and one chapter a day takes 260 days at about 4 minutes. The app marks finished chapters automatically and, on the progress screen, offers to open your first unread chapter in each book.