Bible verses

Post a passage in any text channel with /verse, and give a channel a verse of the day. The King James Version, World English Bible, Berean Standard Bible and American Standard Version (1901) are built in; other translations come from API.Bible.

Before you start

Bible study channels

Ministry and Business (including Enterprise) on the hosted service; every self-hosted plan keeps Bible study. This is separate from /verse and daily verses, whose availability is unchanged.

Create a Bible study channel to open a Study tab with the verse of the day and group reading plans: front to back, chronological, or a focused study. Leaders start plans; members read the passages in the app, mark each day done, and see the share of the group keeping up.

Owners and Admins: open the workspace menu → Turn features on or off → Features. Switch off Bible study to hide its channels and Activity reminders for members. Nothing is deleted; switch it back on to restore channels, plans and ticks. On Business, Business essentials hides church and gaming extras together, with a confirmation before applying. When you select an enabled, unused Bible study or Prayer type in the create-channel dialog, Don't need this? Turn it off opens the same settings.

/verse

Type /verse in the composer, pick it, and type the passage. You can name a translation in the second box, or at the end of the passage. It posts as the org's Bible bot (with a BOT badge) and says who looked it up.

/verse John 3:16-18
/verse Psalm 23 WEB
/verse John 3:16 BSB
/verse Psalm 23 ASV

A reference that doesn't exist is answered in plain words and posts nothing, for example "John has 21 chapters." or I don't know a book called "Hezekiah".

What you can type

You type You get
John 3:16, jn 3:16, John 3.16 One verse
John 3:16-18, John 3:16–18 A range (any dash)
John 3:16-4:2, Gen 1:1-2:3 A range across chapters
Psalm 23, Ps 23 The chapter
John 3-4 Several chapters
Ps 23:1, 3, 5-6, Romans 8:28,31-39 Verses in one chapter
Ps 23, 24 Chapters (a bare number after a chapter is a chapter)
John 3:16; 4:2; Rom 8:28 Several passages; after ; the book carries on
Jude 5, 3 John 2, Philemon 4-6 One-chapter books: the number is the verse. Jude 1 or Jude alone is the whole book.
1 Cor 13, I Cor 13, First Corinthians 13, Song of Songs 2:4 The usual names, abbreviations and numberings
John 3:16 KJV, John 3:16 (web), John 3:16 [NIV], John 3:16 in the ESV A translation, at the end

The 66 books of the Protestant canon are supported.

Long passages

A post stops at 60 verses or 3,600 characters, with a line saying what to type to carry on, such as "Continue with /verse Psalm 119:48-176". Where a modern translation moves a verse to a footnote (WEB Acts 8:37), /verse says so.

Translations

Translation Where it comes from
KJV, King James Version (1769) Built in. Public domain (outside the UK).
WEB, World English Bible Built in. Public domain.
BSB, Berean Standard Bible Built in. Public domain since April 30, 2023.
ASV, American Standard Version (1901) Built in. Public domain.
Anything your API.Bible key offers API.Bible, looked up when someone asks. Each translation has its own licence, and the copyright line API.Bible returns is always shown under the passage.

All four built-in translations also work in daily verses and Bible study channels. In a study channel, open Study settings → Translation to pick one, or keep The workspace's default. Every passage shows its attribution line.

Pick the org's default under Org Settings → Integrations → Bible verses → Translations (Default for /verse and new daily verses). People can always name another translation at the end of /verse.

Add translations from API.Bible

  1. Get a key at https://api.bible (sign up, then create an app). The free plan is for non-commercial use; check the licence of each translation you add.
  2. In Bible verses → Translations, paste it into Your org's API.Bible key and choose Save key. Missived checks the key with API.Bible first.
  3. Choose Choose translations from API.Bible, tick up to 12, and choose Save translations. They join the translation lists by their short name. A name that clashes with KJV, WEB, BSB or ASV needs a different short name.

The key is stored encrypted and only its last four characters are shown. It never reaches a browser: every lookup runs on the server. Remove key stops those translations; daily verses that use one start failing until you change them.

Some servers offer an API.Bible key from the operator to every org; your org's own key wins over it.

The verse of the day

  1. Open Org Settings → Integrations → Bible verses → Add a daily verse.
  2. Pick the channel (Posts into), the Translation, the Time (07:00 by default), the Time zone (your browser's by default) and the Days.
  3. Choose Add daily verse.

It posts "Verse of the day: …" at that local time, within a minute or so, from a list of about 190 well-loved passages: the same passage in every channel on a given day. If today's time has already passed when you add it, it starts tomorrow.

Post today's verse now posts today's verse at once. It posts only once a day: pressing it again, or the schedule coming round, won't post a second copy.

Each daily verse has Pause / Resume, Edit and Remove. A channel has at most one daily verse.

The same settings are in the API reference (getBibleSettings, updateBibleSettings, listApiBibleTranslations, previewVerse, createDailyVerse, updateDailyVerse, deleteDailyVerse, postDailyVerseNow). These routes take a signed-in session of someone with Manage integrations; API tokens are not accepted yet.

What data moves

Limits

Passages per /verse Up to 5 (and 12 pieces in all)
Reference length 200 characters
One post 60 verses or 3,600 characters
API.Bible translations Up to 12 per org
Daily verses One per channel; up to 10 per org on Ministry and Business

Troubleshooting

You see What to do
"Up to 5 passages at a time." Split the list over several /verse commands.
"That's a lot of pieces. Look up a few at a time." Ask for fewer separate verses or ranges at once.
"That channel already has a daily verse." Edit the existing one, or pick another channel.
"Your plan's daily verses are all in use" Remove one, or move to a plan with more.
A daily verse shows Paused automatically Its translation stopped working (for example the API.Bible key was removed or refused) ten times in a row. Whoever added it got an email. Fix the translation, then Resume.
A plan refusal on /verse Bible verses are on the Ministry and Business plans.