What Is the Shortest Book in the Bible?
Last Updated Apr 9, 2020 7:13:45 AM ET
The shortest book in the Bible by word count is 3 John, with only 219 words in the Bible's original language. The second-shortest book by word count, 2 John, has 245 words, but it has fewer verses than 3 John. 3 John has 15 verses, while 2 John has 13.
2 John and 3 John are the only books in the Bible that have less than 20 verses. The next two shortest books, Philemon and Obadiah, have 25 and 21 verses, respectively. By comparison, the longest book in the Bible, Luke, has nearly 20,000 words broken into 24 chapters and more than 1,000 verses.
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