bbl – command-line Bible reading and searching tool

bbl is a command-line Bible reader that makes scripture accessible directly from a terminal. It supports reading individual verses, complete chapters and selected passage ranges without opening a graphical application.

The program is particularly useful for comparing translations in different languages. Users can specify several Bible versions in the same command and display their contents together, making it easier to examine differences in wording.

bbl uses Kotlin Multiplatform and Kotlin/Native to provide native command-line executables. Bible translations are installed separately as downloadable packs, allowing users to keep only the resources they need. Once downloaded, scripture texts can be read and searched offline.

This is free and open source software.

Key Features

• Read Bible chapters, individual verses and selected verse ranges from the terminal.
• Accept abbreviated Bible book names and flexible scripture references.
• Compare passages across multiple Bible translations in a single command.
• Read scripture in numerous languages, including English, German, French, Spanish and Chinese.
• Search Bible texts for keywords, phrases and exact quotations.
• Use language-aware full-text searching with stemming and stop-word handling.
• Restrict searches to particular books, chapters, chapter ranges or groups of biblical books.
• Limit the number of results returned by a search.
• Display random verses from the Old Testament, New Testament or selected categories.
• Install and remove Bible translation packs using built-in commands.
• List available translations, Bible books and predefined search categories.
• Choose a default translation and configure how parallel passages are displayed.
• Maintain a history of reading, searching and configuration commands.
• Generate shell completion scripts for Bash, Zsh, Fish and PowerShell.
• Configure application behaviour using commands or a local JSON configuration file.
• Run natively on Linux without requiring a Java virtual machine.

Website: github.com/nehemiaharchives/bbl
Support:
Developer: Hokuto Joel Ide and contributors
License: Apache License 2.0

bbl is written in Kotlin. Learn Kotlin with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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