What is the shortest book in the Bible?
By word count the shortest book in the Bible is 3 John: 294 words in the King James Version and 293 in the World English Bible. By verse count 2 John is shortest, with 13 verses. The next shortest by words is 2 John (298).
Updated October 22, 2026
Every ranking below is counted from the full text of the King James Version and the World English Bible. Where they differ, each table says which.
The 10 shortest books of the Bible, by words
Ranked by KJV word count. The WEB column is the World English Bible count for the same book.
The 10 shortest books by verses
Verse counts follow the KJV numbering.
Questions people ask
What is the shortest book in the Bible?
3 John by word count (294 words in the KJV). 2 John has the fewest verses (13).
Why do some sources say 3 John and others say Obadiah or 2 John?
They measure different things. By verses, 2 John has 13; by words in the KJV, 3 John has 294. Chapters are no help: 5 books have a single chapter.
Does the answer change between the KJV and the World English Bible?
No. 3 John is shortest in both.
What is the longest book in the Bible?
Jeremiah by words (42,693 in the KJV).
More counts: the longest book in the Bible, the shortest chapter in the Bible, the shortest verse in the Bible. See also the Bible by the numbers, the books of the Bible in order and how long the Bible is.
Counted by Bible Says About from the full public-domain text of the King James Version (1769 edition) and the World English Bible. Verse text only: headings and psalm titles are left out. A word is a run of letters: a hyphenated name like Beer-sheba counts as two, and an apostrophe stays inside its word (LORD'S is one). Matching ignores capital letters. Data compiled 2026-10-22.