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The 73 books of the Catholic Bible

The Catholic Bible has 73 books: 46 in the Old Testament, 7 of them deuterocanonical, and 27 in the New. Here they are in canonical order, each with an introduction, Bishop Challoner’s summary of its chapters and the full text in the Catholic Public Domain Version.

73books
1,334chapters
35,804verses
1,306chapter summaries by Challoner

The canon

73 books. Nothing left out.

The full Catholic canon — 46 books of the Old Testament and 27 of the New — including the 7 deuterocanonical books, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch and 1–2 Maccabees, and the longer Esther and Daniel: 1,334 chapters and 35,804 verses as Bless numbers them, following the Vulgate.

Deuterocanonical

Why 73? Book-by-book counts

46 books

The Old Testament

Genesis to 2 Maccabees, in the order of the Vulgate and the Douay-Rheims.

The Law

The five books of Moses.

1Origins narrative
Genesis
50 chapters · 1,530 verses
Genesis opens the Bible with the stories Israel told about where everything came from: the world, the human family, and the one people God chose to begin repairing it.
2Deliverance narrative
Exodus
40 chapters · 1,211 verses
Exodus tells how God pulled a nation of slaves out of Egypt and bound himself to them at Sinai.
3Ritual and moral law
Leviticus
27 chapters · 858 verses
Leviticus is the priests' book: instructions for sacrifice, purity, and worship in Israel's sanctuary, traditionally credited to Moses and preserved by the priestly families who used it.
4Wilderness narrative
Numbers
36 chapters · 1,288 verses
Numbers follows Israel through forty years between Egypt and the promised land, mixing census lists and laws with some of the Bible's sharpest stories of complaint and rebellion.
5Covenant sermons
Deuteronomy
34 chapters · 959 verses
Deuteronomy presents itself as Moses' farewell speeches on the border of the promised land, restating the law for the children of the people who left Egypt.

The historical books

Israel in the land, in exile and home again.

6Conquest narrative
Joshua
also called Josue
24 chapters · 658 verses
Joshua recounts Israel's entry into the promised land — the Jordan crossing, Jericho, the division of the territory among the tribes.
7Tribal history
Judges
21 chapters · 618 verses
Judges covers the rough centuries between Joshua and the kings, when Israel was a loose federation rescued again and again by improvised leaders: Deborah, Gideon, Samson.
8Family story
Ruth
4 chapters · 85 verses
Ruth is a short story about a Moabite widow who binds herself to her ruined Israelite mother-in-law and finds, through loyalty and a kinsman's kindness, a place in Israel — and in the ancestry of David.
9Prophetic history
1 Samuel
31 chapters · 811 verses
The first book of Samuel tells how Israel got a king: the prophet Samuel, the tragic reign of Saul, and the rise of the shepherd David.
10Royal history
2 Samuel
24 chapters · 694 verses
The second book of Samuel follows David's reign: the capture of Jerusalem, God's promise of an everlasting dynasty, and then the long ruin that flows from David's sin against Uriah and his wife.
11Royal history
1 Kings
22 chapters · 817 verses
The first book of Kings runs from David's death through Solomon's temple and the kingdom's split into north and south, ending in the days of Elijah.
12Royal history
2 Kings
25 chapters · 719 verses
The second book of Kings carries the story from Elijah's successor Elisha to the fall of both kingdoms — Israel to Assyria, Judah to Babylon — and the burning of the temple.
13Liturgical history
1 Chronicles
29 chapters · 940 verses
The first book of Chronicles retells Israel's story from Adam to David, this time from the perspective of worship: genealogies that anchor the returned exiles in their past, and David recast as the great organizer of temple prayer and music.
14Liturgical history
2 Chronicles
36 chapters · 822 verses
The second book of Chronicles continues the Chronicler's retelling from Solomon to the exile, keeping the temple at the center of every reign.
15Restoration history
Ezra
10 chapters · 280 verses
Ezra recounts the return from Babylon: the rebuilt altar and temple, and then the arrival of Ezra the priest-scribe to re-teach a half-assimilated community the law of Moses.
16Restoration memoir
Nehemiah
13 chapters · 404 verses
Nehemiah is largely the first-person memoir of a Jewish cupbearer to the Persian king who obtained leave to rebuild Jerusalem's walls, and did it in fifty-two days against ridicule and armed threat.
17Edifying tale
Tobit
also called Tobias
14 chapters · 298 versesDeuterocanonical
Tobit is the story of a devout family in exile — a blind father, a desperate bride, and the son whose journey, guided by the archangel Raphael in disguise, heals them both.
18Heroic tale
Judith
16 chapters · 345 versesDeuterocanonical
Judith tells how a widow of Israel, beautiful and fearless, delivered her besieged town by walking into the enemy camp and beheading its general.
19Court tale
Esther
16 chapters · 275 verses
Esther tells how a Jewish orphan became queen of Persia and, at the risk of her life, undid a decree of annihilation against her people — the deliverance Jews still celebrate at Purim.

The wisdom books

Prayer, poetry and the art of living well.

20Wisdom drama
Job
42 chapters · 1,070 verses
Job is a long poem wrapped in an old story: a blameless man loses everything, and then argues with his comforters — and with God — about why.
21Prayer collection
Psalms
150 psalms · 2,528 verses
The Psalms are Israel's prayer book: one hundred fifty poems of praise, complaint, thanksgiving, fury, and trust, gathered over many centuries.
22Wisdom sayings
Proverbs
31 chapters · 915 verses
Proverbs is a training manual in practical wisdom: short sayings about speech, money, work, anger, friendship, and the fear of the Lord that begins all understanding.
23Wisdom meditation
Ecclesiastes
12 chapters · 222 verses
Ecclesiastes is the Bible's starkest book: a teacher who calls himself Qoheleth, writing in Solomon's persona, examines wealth, pleasure, work, and learning, and finds them all vanity — breath, mist, gone.
24Love poetry
Song of Songs
also called Canticles
8 chapters · 116 verses
The Song of Songs is a cycle of love poems between a bride and bridegroom — ardent, physical, and entirely without embarrassment.
25Wisdom exhortation
Wisdom
19 chapters · 439 versesDeuterocanonical
The book of Wisdom was written in Greek by an unknown Alexandrian Jew in roughly the last century before Christ, speaking in the persona of Solomon.
26Wisdom instruction
Sirach
also called Ecclesiasticus
51 chapters · 1,591 versesDeuterocanonical
Sirach — called Ecclesiasticus in the Douay-Rheims — is the teaching of Jesus ben Sirach, a Jerusalem sage of about two centuries before Christ, translated into Greek by his own grandson.

The prophets

The four major prophets, Lamentations and Baruch, and the twelve.

27Prophetic oracles
Isaiah
also called Isaias
66 chapters · 1,292 verses
Isaiah is the greatest of the prophetic books, spanning judgment and consolation: threats against a corrupt Jerusalem, comfort for exiles in Babylon, and visions of a restored people and a suffering servant who bears the sins of many.
28Prophetic oracles
Jeremiah
also called Jeremias
52 chapters · 1,363 verses
Jeremiah preserves the preaching and the sufferings of the prophet who watched Jerusalem fall to Babylon after forty years of ignored warnings.
29Funeral poetry
Lamentations
5 chapters · 154 verses
Lamentations is five tightly crafted poems mourning Jerusalem after its destruction by Babylon — the burned temple, the starving children, the taunting enemies.
30Exilic exhortation
Baruch
6 chapters · 213 versesDeuterocanonical
Baruch comes down under the name of Jeremiah's secretary, presented as written among the exiles in Babylon; in the form we have, it is a later composition gathering that community's prayer of confession, a poem in praise of Wisdom, and words of comfort for Jerusalem.
31Prophetic visions
Ezekiel
also called Ezechiel
48 chapters · 1,272 verses
Ezekiel was a priest deported to Babylon before Jerusalem fell, and his book records the strangest visions in the prophets: the throne-chariot of God, the departure of God's glory from the temple, the valley of dry bones brought to life.
32Stories and visions
Daniel
14 chapters · 531 verses
Daniel joins court stories — the fiery furnace, the lions' den, the writing on the wall — to apocalyptic visions of empires rising and falling before the kingdom of God.
33Prophetic oracles
Hosea
also called Osee
14 chapters · 198 verses
Hosea preached to the northern kingdom in its last prosperous decades, and his message came through his own broken marriage: commanded to love an unfaithful wife, he learned in his flesh what Israel's idolatry does to God.
34Prophetic oracles
Joel
3 chapters · 73 verses
Joel took a devastating locust plague and read it as a rehearsal of the day of the Lord, calling Judah to fasting and a rending of hearts rather than garments.
35Prophetic oracles
Amos
9 chapters · 146 verses
Amos was a shepherd and dresser of sycamores from Judah, sent north to a booming Israel to say that its worship was noise because its markets were crooked.
36Prophetic oracle
Obadiah
also called Abdias
1 chapter · 21 verses
Obadiah is the shortest book of the Old Testament: a single oracle against Edom, Israel's brother-nation, which gloated over Jerusalem's fall and looted the survivors.
37Prophetic story
Jonah
also called Jonas
4 chapters · 48 verses
Jonah is the prophet who ran the other way: sent to preach to Nineveh, capital of Israel's worst enemy, he fled by sea, was swallowed by the great fish, obeyed on the second try — and then sulked when the city repented and God relented.
38Prophetic oracles
Micah
also called Micheas
7 chapters · 104 verses
Micah, a village prophet contemporary with Isaiah, indicted both capitals — Samaria and Jerusalem — for land-grabbing, corrupt courts, and preachers for hire.
39Prophetic oracle
Nahum
3 chapters · 47 verses
Nahum is a single sustained poem on the coming fall of Nineveh, the Assyrian capital whose cruelty had terrorized the ancient world for a century.
40Prophetic dialogue
Habakkuk
also called Habacuc
3 chapters · 56 verses
Habakkuk is a prophet arguing with God: why does violence go unpunished — and when the answer comes, that Babylon will be the punishment, why use a nation even worse?
41Prophetic oracles
Zephaniah
also called Sophonias
3 chapters · 53 verses
Zephaniah preached in Jerusalem shortly before the reforms of King Josiah, announcing the day of the Lord as a searching judgment that begins with God's own people.
42Prophetic exhortation
Haggai
also called Aggeus
2 chapters · 38 verses
Haggai spoke to the exiles who had returned to Jerusalem and then stalled: fifteen years on, the temple was still rubble while everyone paneled his own house.
43Prophetic visions
Zechariah
also called Zacharias
14 chapters · 211 verses
Zechariah, a contemporary of Haggai, encouraged the same temple-builders with a series of night visions of God's renewed favor toward Jerusalem, followed by later chapters looking toward a strange, humble king.
44Prophetic disputation
Malachi
also called Malachias
4 chapters · 55 verses
Malachi — the name means my messenger — closes the Old Testament with a series of blunt arguments between God and a post-exilic community grown bored with him: tired priests, cheap sacrifices, broken marriages, and the weary sneer that serving God is useless.

The Maccabees

The revolt against Antiochus, at the end of the Old Testament as in the Vulgate.

45Historical narrative
1 Maccabees
also called 1 Machabees
16 chapters · 929 versesDeuterocanonical
The first book of Maccabees is a sober history of the Jewish revolt against the Greek king Antiochus, who outlawed the faith and desecrated the temple: the rising of the priest Mattathias, the campaigns of his son Judas Maccabeus, and the rededication of the altar still kept at Hanukkah.
46Theological history
2 Maccabees
also called 2 Machabees
15 chapters · 558 versesDeuterocanonical
The second book of Maccabees retells the same persecution independently, condensing a longer work by Jason of Cyrene, and it cares less for campaigns than for meaning: the martyrdoms of the aged Eleazar and of seven brothers with their mother are its heart.

27 books

The New Testament

Matthew to Revelation.

The Gospels and Acts

The life of Jesus four times over, then the first Church.

47Gospel
Matthew
28 chapters · 1,070 verses
Matthew tells the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus for readers steeped in the Old Testament, presenting him at every turn as the fulfillment of Israel's story — the new and greater Moses teaching from the mountain.
48Gospel
Mark
16 chapters · 677 verses
Mark is the shortest and most urgent Gospel, driving from the baptism of Jesus to the empty tomb with the word immediately on nearly every page.
49Gospel
Luke
24 chapters · 1,151 verses
Luke, by ancient tradition the physician and companion of Paul, wrote his Gospel for Gentile believers, addressing it to a certain Theophilus and promising an orderly account based on eyewitness tradition.
50Gospel
John
21 chapters · 879 verses
John is the last and deepest of the Gospels, opening not in Bethlehem but before creation: the Word was God, and the Word became flesh.
51Church history
Acts
28 chapters · 1,004 verses
Acts is Luke's second volume, carrying the story from the risen Jesus' ascension to Paul preaching in Rome: Pentecost, the first community, Stephen's martyrdom, the conversion of Paul, and the Gospel's leap from Jerusalem to the Gentile world.

The letters of St. Paul

Romans to Philemon, with Hebrews.

52Doctrinal letter
Romans
16 chapters · 433 verses
Romans is Paul's longest and most systematic letter, written to a church he had not yet visited, to prepare his way and to set out his gospel whole: all have sinned, Jew and Gentile alike, and all are justified freely by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
53Letter to a community
1 Corinthians
16 chapters · 437 verses
First Corinthians is Paul's letter to a gifted, quarrelsome young church in a booming port city, answering reported scandals and written questions one by one: factions, sexual immorality, lawsuits, marriage, food offered to idols, disorder at the Eucharist, and confusion about spiritual gifts and resurrection.
54Letter to a community
2 Corinthians
13 chapters · 255 verses
Second Corinthians is Paul's most personal letter, written after a painful breach with the Corinthian church and a fragile reconciliation, while rival teachers questioned his credentials.
55Polemical letter
Galatians
6 chapters · 149 verses
Galatians is Paul at white heat: churches he founded were being told that Gentile converts must keep the Mosaic law, and this letter is his furious, loving answer that no one is justified by works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ.
56Circular letter
Ephesians
6 chapters · 155 verses
Ephesians reads less like a response to problems than a meditation to be read aloud in many churches: God's eternal plan to unite all things in Christ, the Church as his body and bride, Jew and Gentile made one new man by the cross.
57Letter of friendship
Philippians
4 chapters · 104 verses
Philippians is Paul writing from prison to his first European church and his most beloved: a thank-you note for their aid that grows into the most joyful letter he ever wrote.
58Letter to a community
Colossians
4 chapters · 95 verses
Colossians answers a church Paul had never met, unsettled by teachers pushing angelic powers, ascetic rules, and secret fullness beyond Christ.
59Letter to a community
1 Thessalonians
5 chapters · 88 verses
First Thessalonians is very likely the oldest book of the New Testament, written by Paul only months after he founded the church in Thessalonica and was driven out of the city.
60Letter to a community
2 Thessalonians
3 chapters · 46 verses
Second Thessalonians addresses a church rattled by claims that the day of the Lord had already come, with some members so sure of the end that they had stopped working.
61Pastoral letter
1 Timothy
6 chapters · 113 verses
First Timothy is written as Paul's instruction to his young delegate overseeing the church at Ephesus: how to silence speculative teachers, how to order public prayer, what to require of bishops and deacons, how to treat elders, widows, and wealth.
62Pastoral letter
2 Timothy
4 chapters · 83 verses
Second Timothy is cast as Paul's last letter, written from a Roman prison with death in view, to the co-worker he loved like a son: guard the deposit, endure hardship, preach the word in season and out.
63Pastoral letter
Titus
3 chapters · 46 verses
Titus is a short field manual addressed to Paul's delegate on Crete, a rough mission territory with a young, disorganized church: appoint worthy elders in every town, mute the troublemakers, and teach every age and station what sound living looks like.
64Personal letter
Philemon
1 chapter · 25 verses
Philemon is the shortest of Paul's letters and the most delicate: a note from prison to a Christian slaveholder whose slave Onesimus had run away, met Paul, and been baptized.
65Homily on Christ
Hebrews
13 chapters · 303 verses
Hebrews is less a letter than a magnificent sermon on why there is no going back from Christ: greater than angels, than Moses, than the temple priesthood — the true high priest who entered the sanctuary once for all with his own blood.

The Catholic letters

James, Peter, John and Jude, written to the whole Church.

66Wisdom letter
James
5 chapters · 108 verses
James is the New Testament's wisdom book: short, blunt paragraphs on trials, favoritism toward the rich, the untamable tongue, quarrels, presumption about tomorrow, and withheld wages.
67Letter to exiles
1 Peter
5 chapters · 105 verses
First Peter addresses scattered believers in Asia Minor who were being slandered and socially punished for their new faith, calling them what Israel was called: a chosen race, a royal priesthood, strangers and pilgrims.
68Farewell letter
2 Peter
3 chapters · 61 verses
Second Peter is written as the apostle's testament before death, warning against false teachers who twist freedom into license and scoff that the promised coming never arrives.
69Letter on love
1 John
5 chapters · 105 verses
First John was written to communities shaken by members who had walked out denying that the Son of God truly came in the flesh.
70Brief letter
2 John
1 chapter · 13 verses
Second John is a one-page note from the elder — the voice of the Johannine churches — to a congregation he calls the elect lady and her children.
71Brief letter
3 John
1 chapter · 14 verses
Third John is the shortest book of the Bible: a personal note from the elder to his friend Gaius, thanking him for supporting traveling missionaries, and contrasting him with Diotrephes, a local leader who loved the first place and shut the door on the brethren.
72Warning letter
Jude
1 chapter · 25 verses
Jude, written by the brother of James and thus counted among the relatives of the Lord, is a single urgent page against intruders who had slipped into the community and turned grace into permission for immorality.

Revelation

The Apocalypse given to John.

73Apocalyptic prophecy
Revelation
also called Apocalypse
22 chapters · 405 verses
Revelation — the Apocalypse — was written by John, exiled on the island of Patmos, to seven churches in Asia Minor under the shadow of imperial persecution and emperor worship.

About the text

Scripture here is the Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), translated from the Clementine Vulgate and placed in the public domain; it has no imprimatur. Books, chapters and verses follow the Vulgate as Bless numbers them, so most Psalms are one lower than in Bibles that follow the Hebrew (how Psalm numbering works). Chapter summaries are Bishop Richard Challoner’s, from his revision of the Douay-Rheims (1749–52).