# Zephaniah in Chinese — vocabulary profile

> Zephaniah uses 532 distinct Chinese characters and 514 distinct words across 1,939 characters and 52 verses of the Chinese Union Version (和合本, simplified). 53.7% of its word tokens are HSK 1-3, ranking it 60th of 66 books from easiest to hardest by that measure.

| Measure | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Chapters | 3 |
| Verses | 52 |
| Chinese characters | 1,939 |
| Distinct characters | 532 |
| Word tokens | 1,338 |
| Distinct words | 514 |
| Average verse | 37 characters |
| HSK 1-3 word tokens | 53.7% |
| HSK 1-6 word tokens | 67.9% |
| Not in HSK 1-9 | 24.6% |
| Difficulty rank | 60 of 66 (1 = easiest) |
| Reading time | 7 min at 260 chars/min |
| Testament | Old Testament |

## Most frequent words in this book

| # | Word | Occurrences |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 必 | 50 |
| 2 | 耶和华 | 35 |
| 3 | 人 | 15 |
| 4 | 日子 | 13 |
| 5 | 地 | 12 |
| 6 | 说 | 11 |
| 7 | 使 | 9 |
| 8 | 当 | 7 |
| 9 | 亚 | 7 |
| 10 | 一切 | 7 |
| 11 | 要 | 7 |
| 12 | 日 | 7 |
| 13 | 哪 | 7 |
| 14 | 灭 | 6 |
| 15 | 那些 | 6 |
| 16 | 聚集 | 6 |
| 17 | 民 | 6 |
| 18 | 因 | 6 |
| 19 | 中间 | 6 |
| 20 | 基 | 5 |
| 21 | 除 | 5 |
| 22 | 居民 | 5 |
| 23 | 那时 | 5 |
| 24 | 如 | 5 |
| 25 | 毁灭 | 5 |
| 26 | 应当 | 5 |
| 27 | 实 | 5 |
| 28 | 有 | 5 |
| 29 | 神 | 5 |
| 30 | 临到 | 4 |
| 31 | 玛 | 4 |
| 32 | 耶路撒冷 | 4 |
| 33 | 剩下 | 4 |
| 34 | 已经 | 4 |
| 35 | 房屋 | 4 |
| 36 | 发出 | 4 |
| 37 | 城 | 4 |
| 38 | 荒凉 | 4 |
| 39 | 无人 | 4 |
| 40 | 卧 | 4 |
| 41 | 就是 | 4 |
| 42 | 以色列 | 4 |
| 43 | 事 | 4 |
| 44 | 犹大 | 3 |
| 45 | 利 | 3 |
| 46 | 大 | 3 |
| 47 | 古 | 3 |
| 48 | 万 | 3 |
| 49 | 剪除 | 3 |
| 50 | 攻击 | 3 |

## Chapters, easiest first

| Chapter | HSK 1-3 | Verses | Characters |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Zephaniah 3 | 56.6% | 20 | 709 |
| Zephaniah 1 | 55.5% | 18 | 647 |
| Zephaniah 2 | 48.4% | 14 | 583 |

Page: https://chinese-bible.com/en/reference/books/zephaniah · Read it: https://chinese-bible.com/en/zephaniah

## Method

- Text: 和合本 (Chinese Union Version), simplified script — public domain
- Words: forward maximum matching against CC-CEDICT (this site's own segmentation)
- 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)
- Computed: 2026-09-22

These are reproducible counts over a public-domain text, not a peer-reviewed study. Difficulty ranks are one stated formula, not a validated readability score.


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- 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).
- Bible text: public domain — 和合本 · World English Bible · Louis Segond 1910.
- Built with https://chinese-bible.com