Is this a readability score?

No. It is one stated formula over vocabulary frequency, not a validated readability index, and it says nothing about grammar or subject matter.

Would a different HSK band change the order?

Somewhat. The ordering uses HSK 1-3; a reader at HSK 6 would find the differences smaller, since HSK 6 covers 71.4% of the text overall.

Can I sort by length instead?

The character column does that: the shortest books are 2 John, 3 John, Philemon.

All 66 Bible Books Ranked by Difficulty

Answering: “Bible books ranked by Chinese difficulty”

Updated 2026-09-22 · plain text · JSON

One table, every book, with the numbers behind the ordering. The formula is fixed and printed here so the ranking can be checked or disagreed with: share of word tokens at HSK 1-3, tie-broken by distinct characters per 1,000 characters of text.

Read it as a reading order rather than a verdict. Working down from the top means meeting new vocabulary at the slowest rate; the spread between the easiest and hardest book is 22.6 percentage points, which in practice is the difference between one unknown word a verse and three.

Each row links to that book's own profile, which adds its distinct-word count, its reading time, its most frequent words and the words that occur in it and nowhere else.

All 66 books, easiest first

Rank	Book	HSK 1-3	Characters	Distinct chars	Distinct words	Minutes
1	John	72.3%	23,643	1,011	1,647	91
2	Matthew	68.1%	27,983	1,415	2,475	108
3	2 John	67.9%	393	151	138	2
4	Mark	67.8%	17,497	1,227	1,933	67
5	1 John	67.8%	3,218	330	395	12
6	Luke	67.7%	30,495	1,493	2,749	117
7	Revelation	65.1%	13,487	1,068	1,555	52
8	James	64.9%	3,072	635	707	12
9	2 Corinthians	64.3%	8,057	827	1,165	31
10	2 Thessalonians	63.8%	1,415	361	360	5
11	Genesis	63.7%	44,626	1,502	2,781	172
12	Song of Solomon	63.7%	3,426	680	741	13
13	3 John	63.7%	419	171	160	2
14	Acts	63.2%	28,933	1,377	2,628	111
15	1 Corinthians	62.9%	12,262	954	1,453	47
16	1 Thessalonians	61.9%	2,623	483	534	10
17	Philemon	61.8%	601	226	210	2
18	Galatians	61.7%	4,182	605	757	16
19	Ruth	61.7%	2,956	484	554	11
20	Exodus	61.5%	35,177	1,415	2,395	135
21	Jonah	61.5%	1,450	411	393	6
22	Psalms	61.4%	53,904	1,747	3,490	207
23	Deuteronomy	61.2%	31,448	1,441	2,385	121
24	Ecclesiastes	61.2%	6,156	841	1,137	24
25	Colossians	61.2%	2,835	558	628	11
26	Philippians	61.1%	2,970	549	642	11
27	Hebrews	60.5%	8,926	976	1,440	34
28	Ezekiel	60.3%	42,983	1,594	2,874	165
29	Job	59.7%	20,857	1,574	2,722	80
30	Ephesians	59.5%	3,938	645	800	15
31	Judges	59.2%	21,662	1,242	1,911	83
32	Romans	59.1%	12,252	971	1,504	47
33	Lamentations	59%	4,081	797	903	16
34	Leviticus	58.9%	25,598	1,094	1,626	98
35	2 Timothy	58.8%	2,280	569	615	9
36	Jude	58.6%	897	357	317	3
37	2 Peter	58.5%	2,070	515	572	8
38	Jeremiah	58.3%	50,586	1,678	3,139	195
39	Zechariah	58.1%	7,158	926	1,162	28
40	Numbers	57.9%	36,709	1,302	2,169	141
41	Joshua	57.7%	22,629	1,026	1,583	87
42	1 Samuel	57.7%	28,433	1,328	2,215	109
43	Malachi	57.6%	2,310	508	499	9
44	1 Kings	57.1%	26,860	1,312	2,182	103
45	Isaiah	56.9%	43,651	1,904	3,754	168
46	Daniel	56.8%	12,539	1,093	1,629	48
47	Haggai	56.8%	1,285	331	312	5
48	1 Timothy	56.7%	3,075	629	761	12
49	2 Samuel	56.2%	23,411	1,332	2,157	90
50	Titus	56.1%	1,299	416	423	5
51	1 Peter	56%	3,315	653	757	13
52	Joel	55.5%	2,259	582	588	9
53	2 Kings	55.3%	26,180	1,283	2,095	101
54	Micah	54.9%	3,712	786	890	14
55	Esther	54.8%	5,858	724	907	23
56	Amos	54.5%	4,809	860	982	18
57	Habakkuk	54.5%	1,657	572	562	6
58	Nehemiah	54.4%	12,713	1,039	1,483	49
59	Hosea	53.7%	6,389	949	1,167	25
60	Zephaniah	53.7%	1,939	532	514	7
61	Proverbs	52.5%	16,973	1,441	2,335	65
62	2 Chronicles	51.7%	29,469	1,379	2,371	113
63	Obadiah	51.4%	748	277	241	3
64	Nahum	51.3%	1,486	569	537	6
65	Ezra	50.8%	8,754	847	1,144	34
66	1 Chronicles	49.7%	26,171	1,193	1,864	101

Questions

Is this a readability score?: No. It is one stated formula over vocabulary frequency, not a validated readability index, and it says nothing about grammar or subject matter.
Would a different HSK band change the order?: Somewhat. The ordering uses HSK 1-3; a reader at HSK 6 would find the differences smaller, since HSK 6 covers 71.4% of the text overall.
Can I sort by length instead?: The character column does that: the shortest books are 2 John, 3 John, Philemon.

Related reference pages

Take it further

97 ready-made vocabulary decks — by HSK level, by book or by topic, exportable to Anki, Pleco or Quizlet.
Printable 田字格 worksheets — passages with pinyin, meanings and tracing rows.
The parallel reader — Chinese, pinyin and your own language side by side, every word tappable.
The dataset behind these numbers — plain JSON, free to reuse with attribution.

How these numbers were produced

Text: 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script — public domain — 66 books, 1,189 chapters, 31,021 verses.
Words: forward maximum matching against CC-CEDICT (this site's own segmentation). A different segmenter gives slightly different word counts; character counts are unaffected.
HSK levels: HSK 3.0 levels from the complete-hsk-vocabulary list; band 7 covers HSK 7-9.
Reading times: 260 characters a minute — an assumption about a fluent adult reader, not a measurement.
Computed: 2026-09-22, from the text on this site.

These are counts anyone can reproduce from the published dataset. They are not a peer-reviewed linguistic study, and the difficulty rankings are one stated formula rather than a validated readability score.

Definitions: CC-CEDICT, licensed CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). If you share this file onward, keep this notice and share alike. Character data: Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License / LGPL).