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 72% 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 2026-09-26 · 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 21.5 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	72.7%	23,643	1,011	1,626	91
2	Matthew	68.6%	27,983	1,415	2,461	108
3	Mark	68.4%	17,497	1,227	1,917	67
4	Luke	68.2%	30,495	1,493	2,731	117
5	2 John	68%	393	151	137	2
6	1 John	67.9%	3,218	330	394	12
7	Revelation	65.7%	13,487	1,068	1,545	52
8	James	65.3%	3,072	635	705	12
9	Genesis	65.1%	44,626	1,502	2,848	172
10	2 Corinthians	64.4%	8,057	827	1,155	31
11	Song of Solomon	64.1%	3,426	680	735	13
12	2 Thessalonians	64%	1,415	361	358	5
13	Acts	63.9%	28,933	1,377	2,643	111
14	3 John	63.9%	419	171	157	2
15	Ruth	63.2%	2,956	484	546	11
16	1 Corinthians	63%	12,262	954	1,436	47
17	Philemon	62.2%	601	226	204	2
18	Exodus	61.9%	35,177	1,415	2,394	135
19	Deuteronomy	61.9%	31,448	1,441	2,393	121
20	1 Thessalonians	61.9%	2,623	483	534	10
21	Psalms	61.8%	53,904	1,747	3,469	207
22	Galatians	61.8%	4,182	605	746	16
23	Jonah	61.6%	1,450	411	393	6
24	Ecclesiastes	61.5%	6,156	841	1,130	24
25	Colossians	61.4%	2,835	558	619	11
26	Philippians	61.3%	2,970	549	637	11
27	Hebrews	61%	8,926	976	1,434	34
28	Ezekiel	60.8%	42,983	1,594	2,877	165
29	Judges	60.6%	21,662	1,242	1,936	83
30	Job	60%	20,857	1,574	2,717	80
31	Romans	59.5%	12,252	971	1,494	47
32	Ephesians	59.5%	3,938	645	795	15
33	Jeremiah	59.2%	50,586	1,678	3,177	195
34	Leviticus	59.2%	25,598	1,094	1,612	98
35	Lamentations	59.2%	4,081	797	898	16
36	1 Samuel	59.1%	28,433	1,328	2,239	109
37	Joshua	59%	22,629	1,026	1,678	87
38	Numbers	58.9%	36,709	1,302	2,220	141
39	Jude	58.9%	897	357	313	3
40	2 Timothy	58.7%	2,280	569	616	9
41	Zechariah	58.6%	7,158	926	1,156	28
42	2 Peter	58.5%	2,070	515	571	8
43	1 Kings	58.2%	26,860	1,312	2,208	103
44	Malachi	58.1%	2,310	508	496	9
45	Daniel	57.6%	12,539	1,093	1,620	48
46	Isaiah	57.5%	43,651	1,904	3,788	168
47	2 Samuel	57.5%	23,411	1,332	2,202	90
48	1 Timothy	56.9%	3,075	629	757	12
49	2 Kings	56.8%	26,180	1,283	2,114	101
50	Haggai	56.8%	1,285	331	308	5
51	Nehemiah	56.4%	12,713	1,039	1,571	49
52	Titus	56.3%	1,299	416	420	5
53	Esther	56%	5,858	724	906	23
54	1 Peter	56%	3,315	653	749	13
55	Amos	55.9%	4,809	860	973	18
56	Micah	55.9%	3,712	786	882	14
57	Joel	55.7%	2,259	582	584	9
58	Habakkuk	54.7%	1,657	572	561	6
59	Zephaniah	54.5%	1,939	532	510	7
60	Hosea	54.4%	6,389	949	1,160	25
61	Obadiah	54.1%	748	277	232	3
62	2 Chronicles	53%	29,469	1,379	2,420	113
63	Ezra	53%	8,754	847	1,196	34
64	Proverbs	52.9%	16,973	1,441	2,320	65
65	1 Chronicles	51.8%	26,171	1,193	2,140	101
66	Nahum	51.2%	1,486	569	532	6

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 72% 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: 2026-09-26, 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).