Two words. Nine letters. A full stop.
The shortest verse in the English Bible is John 11:35 — “Jesus wept.” It sits in the middle of the most emotionally charged scene in the Gospels, and it is short because there was nothing else to say.
That is the quick answer. But it is not the whole answer, because “shortest” depends entirely on which language you are counting in — and the real story is more interesting than the trivia. Below: the shortest verse in English, in Greek and in Hebrew, how many verses the Bible contains altogether, which verse is the most famous, and thirty short verses worth committing to memory.
John 11:35 — “Jesus Wept.”
Lazarus has been dead four days. His sisters, Martha and Mary, have both said the same sentence to Jesus: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus is about to raise Lazarus from the tomb — he knows the outcome, and he knows it is minutes away.
And he still cries.
That is what makes these two words weigh more than most chapters. Grief is not treated here as a failure of faith to be corrected. Jesus does not tell Mary to stop weeping because resurrection is coming. He weeps with her first, and raises Lazarus second. The verse is short, and it is one of the clearest statements in Scripture that God does not stand at a distance from human sorrow.
Worth noticing: the Greek word used here, edakrysen, means quiet tears — a different word from the loud public wailing described of the mourners a few verses earlier. This is not performance. It is grief.
The Shortest Verse in the Original Languages
Here is where the trivia answer breaks down. The New Testament was written in Greek, and in Greek “Jesus wept” is three words, not two: edakrysen ho Iēsous.
The shortest verse in the Greek New Testament is 1 Thessalonians 5:16 — pantote chairete, “Rejoice always.” Two words, fourteen letters. Slightly shorter than John 11:35 in the language Paul and John actually wrote in.
The two verses sitting side by side is a small theological gift. The shortest verse in English is Jesus in tears. The shortest verse in Greek is a command to rejoice. Both are true at once, and the Christian life is largely the work of holding them together — which is what Paul does explicitly elsewhere when he describes believers as “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.”
In the Hebrew Old Testament, the shortest verses are the bare genealogical lines in 1 Chronicles 1 — verses like 1 Chronicles 1:1, “Adam, Seth, Enosh,” which is three words in Hebrew and three in English. No sentence, no verb, just names. They are short because they are a list.
How Many Verses Are in the Bible?
The most commonly cited figures come from the King James Version:
- Books: 66 (39 Old Testament, 27 New Testament)
- Chapters: 1,189
- Verses: 31,102 — roughly 23,145 in the Old Testament and 7,957 in the New
Those numbers shift slightly between translations. A handful of verses present in the KJV are footnoted rather than numbered in modern versions such as the NIV and ESV, because they do not appear in the earliest manuscripts. Catholic and Orthodox Bibles include additional books and therefore thousands more verses. So the honest answer is “about 31,000, depending on your Bible.”
The verse numbers themselves are a late addition. Chapter divisions are usually credited to Stephen Langton in the early thirteenth century; the New Testament verse numbers to the Paris printer Robert Estienne in 1551. The Geneva Bible of 1560 was the first complete English Bible to carry them throughout. They are a filing system, not part of the inspired text — which is why a verse occasionally begins mid-sentence.
What Is the Most Famous Bible Verse?
John 3:16 — “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” It appears on stadium placards, in search results and on church signs more than any other verse, and it earns the position: it compresses the whole Christian message into a single sentence.
Close behind it, and often ranked first in reading-app statistics rather than cultural recognition, are:
- Philippians 4:13 — “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
- Jeremiah 29:11 — “For I know the plans I have for you.”
- Proverbs 3:5–6 — “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”
- Romans 8:28 — “In all things God works for the good of those who love him.”
- Psalm 23:1 — “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.”
“Most important,” by contrast, is not a question statistics can settle. Different traditions would nominate different verses — John 3:16 for the gospel in miniature, Genesis 1:1 for the foundation everything else rests on, Deuteronomy 6:4 as the confession at the centre of Israel’s faith, or Jesus’s own summary in Matthew 22:37–39: love God, love your neighbour. Jesus said the whole Law and the Prophets hang on those two commands, which is about as strong a claim to centrality as Scripture makes for itself.
30 Short Bible Verses Worth Memorising
Short verses are the natural place to start memorising Scripture, because you can hold them whole. These are grouped by what you might need them for.
When you are afraid or anxious
- 1 Peter 5:7 — “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
- Psalm 56:3 — “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”
- Isaiah 41:10 — “Do not fear, for I am with you.”
- Psalm 46:1 — “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
- Joshua 1:9 — “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid.”
- 2 Timothy 1:7 — “God has not given us a spirit of fear.”
If anxiety is what brought you here, we have a longer collection of short Bible verses for anxiety and worry with the context for each one.
When you are grieving
- John 11:35 — “Jesus wept.”
- Psalm 34:18 — “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.”
- Matthew 5:4 — “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
- Revelation 21:4 — “He will wipe every tear from their eyes.”
- Psalm 147:3 — “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
When you need strength to keep going
- Philippians 4:13 — “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
- Galatians 6:9 — “Let us not become weary in doing good.”
- Isaiah 40:31 — “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.”
- 2 Corinthians 12:9 — “My grace is sufficient for you.”
- Psalm 121:1–2 — “My help comes from the Lord.”
When you need to remember who God is
- 1 John 4:8 — “God is love.”
- 1 John 1:5 — “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.”
- Psalm 100:5 — “For the Lord is good and his love endures forever.”
- Hebrews 13:8 — “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”
- Exodus 14:14 — “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”
When you are deciding what to do next
- Proverbs 3:5 — “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.”
- Psalm 119:105 — “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
- Micah 6:8 — “Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.”
- Colossians 3:23 — “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart.”
- James 1:5 — “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God.”
Everyday anchors
- 1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 — “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances.”
- Psalm 118:24 — “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
- Ephesians 4:32 — “Be kind and compassionate to one another.”
- Romans 12:12 — “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
How to Actually Memorise a Short Verse
- Pick one, not ten. One verse held for a month beats thirty skimmed in a week.
- Read the paragraph around it first. A verse you understand is far easier to retain than a string of words.
- Say it aloud five times. Hearing yourself recruits a second kind of memory.
- Write it out by hand, reference included. The reference is what lets you find it again.
- Put it where your eyes already go — phone lock screen, kettle, car dashboard, bathroom mirror.
- Recite it at a fixed moment each day, then space the reviews out: tomorrow, in three days, in a week, in a month.
Choose verses for the situations you actually face rather than the ones that sound most impressive. A verse only helps if it arrives when you need it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the shortest Bible verse?
John 11:35 — “Jesus wept.” It is two words and nine letters in English, and it is the shortest verse in virtually every English translation.
Is “Jesus wept” really the shortest verse?
In English, yes. In the original Greek, 1 Thessalonians 5:16 (“Rejoice always”) is shorter at fourteen letters, because “Jesus wept” takes three Greek words.
What are five short verses in the Bible?
John 11:35 (“Jesus wept”), 1 Thessalonians 5:16 (“Rejoice always”), 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (“Pray continually”), 1 John 4:8 (“God is love”) and Exodus 20:13 (“You shall not murder”).
How many verses are in the Bible in total?
31,102 in the King James Version, across 1,189 chapters and 66 books. Modern translations vary by a few verses, and Catholic and Orthodox Bibles contain considerably more because they include additional books.
What is the longest verse in the Bible?
Esther 8:9 — a single sentence of roughly ninety words in English describing a decree sent to every province of the Persian empire.
What is a life verse?
A verse someone adopts as a personal theme — a passage they return to as a summary of what they believe God is doing in their life. There is no ceremony to it; you simply notice, over years, which verse keeps finding you.
Two Words Are Enough
It is easy to treat “Jesus wept” as a piece of pub-quiz trivia — the verse children memorise because it is the shortest one they can get away with. But it is arguably the most consoling sentence in the Bible. God, standing at a grave, with the power to undo it, cries first.
Length was never the measure. Start with a short verse because it is easy to carry, and then find that you have been carrying something very large.
