Reading Through the Bible - The 10 Shortest Books in the Bible

We are looking at the 10 Shortest books in the Bible.

You might be surprised at what they actually are.

There are 3 ways of deciding on the sizes of Bible books.

Number of Chapters.

Number of Verses.

Number of Words.

You can see a chart comparing these in my Reading Plan by Order of Size of Books

OR - if time is more important to you Number of minutes, hours & days

Here are the

 10 shortest books of the Bible by Number of Chapters

The First 5 each only contain 1 chapter.

None of the other 5 books are more than 3 chapters long.

1. Second John (1 chapter)
2. Third John (1 chapter)
3. Jude (1 chapter)
4. Obadiah (1 chapter)
5. Philemon (1 chapter)
6. Haggai (2 chapters)
7. Habakkuk (3 chapters)
8. Nahum (3 chapters)
9. Titus (3 chapters)
10. Zephaniah (3 chapters)

Note: In my Reading Plan I have combined   1,2 & 3 John,  1 & 2 Peter,  1 & 2 Timothy,  1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Corinthians and  as it seemed more logical to me to read these letters to the same churches consecutively as well as the 1st & 2nd books in the Old Testament because they logically & historically followed on from each other.

Here are the

 10 shortest books of the Bible by Number of Verses

The First 5 each only contain 1 chapter.

Only one of the other 5 books are more than 3 chapters long.

1. Second John (13 verses)
2. Third John (14 verses)
3. Obadiah (21 verses)
4. Philemon (25 verses)
5. Jude (25 verses)
6. Haggai (38 verses)   2
7. Titus (46 verses    3
8. Nahum (47 verses)   3
9. Jonah (48 verses)    4
10. Zephaniah (53 verses)   3

Here are the

 10 shortest books of the Bible by Number of Words

The First 5 are each only contain 1 chapter.

None of the other 5 books are more than 3 chapters long.

1. Third John (219 words)
2. Second John (245 words)
3. Philemon (430 words)
4. Jude (608 words)
5. Obadiah (669 words)
6. Titus (896 words)
7. Haggai (1130 words)
8. Nahum (1284 words)
9. Jonah (1320 words)
10. Habakkuk (1475 words)

If TIME is more important to you

Number of Minutes, Hours, Days can be considered.

Of course then it would have to be the number of words to calculate from because people have worked out how long it takes to read a certain number of words and hence from that how long it takes to read the various books of the Bible.

For Example in:

30 mins  you could read the book of Ecclesiastes.

1 hour & 30 mins  you could read the Gospel of Mark.

5 hours  you could read the Book of Psalms.

10 hours  you could read the 4 Gospels and the Book of Acts

This is all to do with reading the Bible.

If you would like to start in the whole bible then why not try my Plan

 Reading Through the Bible from Shortest to Longest Book 

Studying and memorizing of course will take longer.

If you are interested in studying you may find these  Devotionals  

and  Bible Studies  helpful 

or 

if you are thinking of trying to memorize more of the Bible then try our page on Memorizing Scripture  to get help and advice (we even have videos of songs there).

OTHER POSTS ABOUT THE BIBLE & BOOKS OF THE BIBLE ARE ADDED REGULARLY AND AN UPDATED LIST CAN BE FOUND AT OUR

 READING THE BIBLE PAGE 

Reading Through the Bible - OBADIAH

There are 2 main facts about the Book of Obadiah.

1st Main Fact

It is the shortest book in the Old Testament and the 4th shortest in the whole Bible (only 3rd John, 2nd John & Philemon are shorter).

Watch out for the 2nd main fact later in this blog post.

OBADIAH  - OLD TESTAMENT -  MINOR PROPHET 

31st book of the OT 

31st book of the Bible

It starts with a statement in v.1

"The vision of Obadiah."

and then continues straight into the prophecy that God gave to Obadiah about the country of Edom. 

What is it?

The Book of Obadiah is one of the Minor Prophets in the Old Testament which means it is Prophecy.

How Long is it?

It has only 1 chapter which contains 21 verses.

Who Wrote it?

Obadiah

There are differences of opinion here it could have been

1.  Obadiah the servant of King Ahab

2.  An Obadiah that lived around the same time as Jeremiah

When was it written?

It is not exactly clear when this book was written but there are thoughts of two possible periods of time

1.  around the time of Elijah during King Ahab's reign

2.  around the time of Jeremiah when there were similar messages to the country of Edom.

Why was it written?

It was written as a warning to the people of Edom

The Overview Bible  tells us the following

"Obadiah warns the neighbouring nation of Edom that they will be judged for plundering Jerusalem."

"Teach Sunday School" tells us the following

"Obadiah warns the neighbouring nation of Edom that they will be judged for plundering Jerusalem.."

Who or What does Obadiah talk about? 

The coming judgement of God on the people of Edom v 1-9

The cruel treatment of the people of Edom to the people of Israel v 10-16

The final Triumph of Israel v 17-21

What background/history is there to the story of Edom?

It comes from the time of Isaac's twin sons Jacob and Esau in the Book of Genesis.

Esau lost his birthright to Jacob and the brothers were estranged but later there was a reconciliation.  God gave them both land but Jacob still had the blessing.

Later Esau's descendants were the people of Edom and Jacob's name was changed to Israel so his descendants where the Israelites. 

What does Obadiah write as encouragement? 

Edom may seem to have won against Israel but God is the one who wins in the end.

How does it end?

It ends with verse 21

Then saviours shall come to Mount Zion

To judge the mountains of Esau,

And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.

2nd Main Fact

It is the least popular book in the Bible!

I have to add here that there were no verses or short passages in this very short book that enticed me to make any Bible Verse graphics!!!

So if you read this Old Testament book the

The Overview Bible  says

"you’ll be able to say you read Obadiah—how many people do you know who can say that? (Probably not many … it’s the least popular book of the Bible.)"

OTHER BOOKS OF THE BIBLE ARE ADDED REGULARLY AND AN UPDATED LIST CAN BE FOUND AT OUR READING THE BIBLE PAGE