Books of the Bible

God creates the world and man falls; after the flood, God calls Abraham, and the promise follows his family through Isaac and Jacob to Joseph in Egypt.

The LORD brings Israel out of bondage in Egypt by Moses, binds them to himself in covenant at Sinai, and comes to dwell among them in the tabernacle.

The laws the LORD gave Moses from the tabernacle at Sinai, by which a sinful people could come near a holy God and live as his own.

Israel’s journey from Sinai to the plains of Moab, in which the generation that refused the land dies in the wilderness and their children are numbered to inherit it.

Moses’ last addresses to Israel on the plains of Moab, retelling the forty years, giving the law again for the land, and renewing the covenant before he dies.

Joshua leads Israel over Jordan into the land sworn to their fathers, defeats its kings, divides it among the tribes by lot, and renews the covenant.

After Joshua’s death Israel forsakes the LORD again and again, and he raises up judges to deliver them, until every man does what is right in his own eyes.

A Moabite widow follows Naomi home to Bethlehem, and the kinsman who redeems the family’s land marries her and becomes David’s great-grandfather.

Samuel, the last of the judges, anoints Israel’s first two kings: Saul, rejected for disobedience, and David, the youngest son of Jesse, chosen in his place.

David reigns over Judah, then all Israel, receives the LORD’s promise of a house for ever, and after his sin with Bathsheba is chastened within his own house.

Israel’s history from David’s last days to the death of Ahab: Solomon’s temple, the kingdom torn in two, and Elijah sent against Baal.

The kings of Israel and Judah from Elijah’s departure until Samaria falls to Assyria and Jerusalem to Babylon, as the LORD’s word by the prophets comes to pass.

Genealogies from Adam to the return from Babylon, then the reign of David: the ark brought to Jerusalem, God’s promise of a house, and the temple prepared.

The kings of David’s line in Jerusalem, from Solomon’s building of the temple to its burning, closing with Cyrus’s decree that the house be built again.

Exiles return from Babylon under Cyrus’ decree and rebuild the house of God at Jerusalem; Ezra the scribe follows with the law and leads the people in confession.

Nehemiah, cupbearer to the king of Persia, goes up to rebuild Jerusalem’s broken wall; then the people hear the law read and bind themselves by covenant to keep it.

A Jewish orphan made queen of Persia goes uncalled before the king to save her people from Haman’s decree, and their deliverance is kept as Purim.

A blameless man of Uz, tested with God’s leave, loses his children, wealth and health, disputes with three friends, and is answered by the LORD out of the whirlwind.

Israel’s prayers and praises to the LORD: a hundred and fifty psalms in five books, from Moses’ day to the captivity.

Solomon’s proverbs and the words of other wise men, gathered in named collections, teaching a son the way of wisdom, which begins in the fear of the LORD.

The Preacher, king in Jerusalem, tests everything done under the sun, calls it vanity, receives joy as God’s gift, and concludes: fear God and keep his commandments.

Solomon’s song of a bride and her beloved king, sung in turns with the daughters of Jerusalem, whose love is “strong as death.”

Five poems over Jerusalem after the temple was burned: the city weeps, owns her sin as the cause, and prays to the LORD who brought it on her.

The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz: judgment on Judah and the nations, comfort for Zion, and the servant of the LORD who bears the sin of many.

The prophecies of Jeremiah, of the priests of Anathoth, who warned Judah for some forty years that Babylon would take Jerusalem, and foretold a new covenant.

A priest among the captives in Babylon sees the glory of the LORD leave the temple before Jerusalem falls, and return to a temple shown him in vision.

Daniel, a captive in Babylon, serves its kings without forsaking his God, and sees the kingdoms of men give way to the kingdom of the Son of man.

A vision against Edom, the nation of Esau, for its violence against its brother Jacob, closing with deliverance on mount Zion.

The shortest Gospel: Jesus’ works in Galilee, his road to Jerusalem, and his death and resurrection there, told as “the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, setting out the gospel in which the righteousness of God is revealed, for Jew and Gentile alike, by faith.

A letter of exhortation showing that Jesus, the Son of God, is the high priest of a better covenant, written to believers tempted under trial to draw back.

The prophecy God gave Jesus Christ to show his servants, sent to John on Patmos: seven letters, then the throne, the Lamb, judgment and all things new.