How references are read

This page shows how the site reads a Bible reference: which book it recognises, which chapters and verses it covers and how many verses that is. Type a reference and choose the language it is written in; nothing is stored.

How to write a reference in this language

Between chapter and verse: “:”
For a range: “-”
Between verses of a list: “,”
Between chapters or books: “;”

How it works

The text is split into parts at the separators of the chosen language.
Each book name or abbreviation is looked up in that language (and as a standard code such as JHN). An unknown name gets suggestions; they are never applied by themselves.
Chapters and verses are checked against the base system: a number that does not exist there is reported.
The parts become verse units of the current mapping release; these are the verses the statistics count.