Troublesome as it is to obtain permission to quote song lyrics, just the opposite is true for the Bible. Getting permission is easy as pie–because it’s already granted! Most Bible publishers are generous with the number of verses you can quote without having to send a written request.
For most purposes, you can quote between 500 and 1,000 Bible verses before you need to contact the publisher. That’s a lot of verses! You’re unlikely to exceed that allotment. All a Bible publisher will request is that you include their specific blurb on your copyright page, a detail your editor will handle. I call that more than fair.
Here for your convenience are the permission limits for some popular translations and paraphrases, along with the names of their publishers:
- English Standard Version (ESV): 1,000 verses (Crossway)
- King James Version (KJV): No restrictions; public domain
- New American Standard Bible (NASB): 1,000 verses (Lockman Foundation)
- New International Version (NIV): 500 verses (Zondervan, for Biblica)
- New King James Version (NKJV): 250 verses (Thomas Nelson)
- New Living Translations (NLT): 500 verses (Tyndale)
- New Revised Standard Version (NRSV): 500 verses (Augsberg Fortress, for the National Council of Churches)
- The Amplified Bible (current, AMP; classic, AMPC): 500 verses (Zondervan, for the Lockman Foundation)
- The Message (MSG): 500 verses (NavPress)
- The Voice (VOICE): 500 verses (Thomas Nelson)
While it’s unlikely you’ll run into any permission concerns, each publisher has their own stipulations for how a given translation may be used. For instance, Crossway Books requires that verses quoted from the ESV “not amount to a complete book of the Bible nor account for . . . 50 percent or more of the total text of the work in which they are quoted.”* In other words, you can’t quote the ESV in a way that flies in the face of reasonableness and common sense.
It can’t hurt you to visit a Bible publisher’s site and read their permission guidelines. You’ll most likely find that you can use their content the way you intend to. And if you have any questions, consult your editor.
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“Guide to Permissions,” Crossway, accessed May 14, 2019,
https://www.crossway.org/permissions/.
Just for fun, how do you count verses with the Message that doesn’t use verse #s?
That’s a great question! When I need to get specific about one of The Message’s nonspecific verses, I simply compare it with a standard translation such as the NIV. I’ve always been able to figure out the verse number without much trouble.
Realistically, unless you’re writing an exhaustive work that features gobs and gobs of MSG text–an unlikely scenario, I think–I doubt you’ll ever need to do a verse count.