What to type

Pinned passages live in this browser, and pinned as the source cycles through them. A bookmark is the passage, not one publisher’s wording of it: it is read in whichever translation the menu is set to, unless you fix one under it here. Star the ones you want to learn by heart: they rise to the top, and the app starts bringing them back on a schedule, with less of the text on screen each time until you are typing them from memory rather than copying them. Put bookmarks on a bundle, the psalms you are learning or a course through the epistles, and pinned mode can draw from that shelf alone.

Copying the canon in order, verse by verse. The quill only moves when a passage is actually finished, so the text advances because you wrote it out, never because you skipped past it.

Pick up anywhere. Jumping moves the quill without erasing how far you have come.

This is the record of what you are learning by heart. There is nothing at the top of the screen to switch on. Type a passage out a few times and you will be asked whether you want to learn it, and when a passage is due for review the app tells you after whatever you have just typed. Starring a bookmark starts it right away; unstarring stops it. Each time a passage comes back, less of it is shown, until nothing is shown and you are typing it from memory.

A passage longer than a couple of verses is learned a little at a time: the first two verses, then the first four, then the first six, and so on until you are typing the whole thing. The line above any passage you are memorising says how far in you are, counted in verses, and the bar beside it fills as you learn more.

due now0

still learning0

know by heart0

THE MONTH AHEAD

new verses a day

aim to remember

Aiming higher means shorter gaps and more writing for the same passages. Nine in ten is the usual balance between the two.

A passage counts as one you know by heart once you have typed every verse of it with nothing on screen. Use the whole thing on the switch above any passage, or from memory beside one below, whenever you think you know it. Getting it wrong changes nothing, so it is always worth trying.

WHAT YOU ARE LEARNING

The ESV and NIV aren’t stored in this app. They belong to their publishers, who lend them out one passage at a time. To borrow them you need a key of your own.

A key is just a long password the publisher gives you. It is free, it takes about three minutes, and it asks for nothing but an email address. It doesn’t cost anything and there is no card to enter. The key only tells the publisher who is asking.

Below there is one box per translation. Get the key, paste it in the box, and that translation joins the menu at the top of the screen. Nothing else changes.

ESV

Show me how to get one

Open esv.org and make an account. It wants an email address and a password, nothing more.
Still signed in, open api.esv.org/account/create-application. If it shows you a sign-in page instead, you aren’t logged in yet. Do step 1 first.
Give the application a name (anything, it is only a label) and fill in Intended Use. “Personal study” is exactly right. Agree to the terms; the part that matters is that personal, non-commercial use like this is free. Approval is immediate, so the page will say Approved: Yes straight away.
Under Application Keys you will see something like this:
Authorization: Token 3f9a1c07b4e28d…c07e
That is a whole line of computer instruction, and only the end part is your key. Copy just that, not the words Authorization or Token. If you do copy the whole line, paste it anyway: the box above knows to throw the wrapping away.
Paste it in the box above. Then choose ESV in the menu at the top of the screen.

Crossway allows 5,000 passages a day, which is far more than anyone can type. Treat the key like a password: it is yours, and their terms ask you not to pass it on. If it ever gets out, Delete Key and Create Another Key on that same page will replace it in seconds.

NIV

Show me how to get one

Open api.bible and choose Sign Up. The NIV’s publisher doesn’t lend it out directly. This is the service that does it for them.
Choose the Starter plan. It costs $0 a month and asks for no card. It is for non-commercial use only, which is what this is.
It asks you to pick 3 copyrighted Bibles. Make sure one of them is the NIV. This is the step people miss. If the NIV isn’t among your three, it won’t appear here no matter how good the key is.
You land on a dashboard. Your API key is in the top-right corner, a plain run of letters and numbers this time, with no wrapping around it. Copy it.
Paste it in the box above. Then choose NIV in the menu at the top of the screen.

If it says the key works but the account doesn’t carry the NIV, go back to step 3. The NIV isn’t one of your three yet.

NLT, already working

Nothing to do. Tyndale lends the NLT to anyone who asks, so it is in the menu already. Choose NLT at the top of the screen and it appears.

I’d rather register anyway

Only worth doing if you would like Tyndale to be able to count you. It changes nothing here.
Open api.nlt.to, register, and paste the key below.

Your keys stay here. They are saved in this browser only, and never sent anywhere but to the publisher they belong to. The one way out is the export file under data, which carries them so you can set up a second browser of your own. That is also why the file is yours to keep rather than to pass on. It can be exported without them.

STORED TEXT

Chapters already fetched are kept here so the scribe resumes without asking for them again. Crossway allows a local copy of no more than 500 verses, or half of any one book, so the store is capped below both and the oldest chapter is dropped first. They ask that it be cleared now and then, so the text stays current.

Settings, bookmarks, best, recent runs, how many times you have written each passage, how far you have come with the ones you are learning by heart, and your publisher keys. Download them as JSON and import the file on another device to arrive set up exactly as you are here. Cached text is left out; it is fetched again as it is needed.

Carry the publisher keys. They travel so the other browser needs no setting up. That makes the file a password, so keep it to yourself. Untick this to export a copy fit to pass on to someone else.

Your own text

How did that go?

The desk

What to type

WHAT YOU ARE LEARNING

STORED TEXT