What is OpenScripture?
OpenScripture is a customisable, translation-aware Bible app that shows where published translations agree and differ, helps you study the original languages, and lets you build your own personalised reading text.
We span multiple translations across Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Ecumenical, Jewish, and Independent traditions — giving you one of the broadest views of any free Bible tool.
Every word connects back to the original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek — with Strong's numbers, morphology, and definitions available at a tap.
Hebrew Strong’s dictionary entries and the unabridged Brown-Driver-Briggs lexicon (the word-study “Full lexicon entry”): the 1906 BDB text is public domain, digitised by Sefaria, with the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project (structured markup CC BY 4.0) as fallback source.
Greek Strong’s dictionary glosses and definitions include adapted excerpts from Liddell & Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, provided by Perseus Digital Library via Greek Reference (CC BY-SA 3.0 US).
Word glosses, word-study definitions, proper names, and original-language versification mapping are derived from STEPBible data — the “Translators Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs” (TBESH/TBESG, abridged Brown-Driver-Briggs and Abbott-Smith), “Translators Versification Traditions” (TVTMS), and “Individualised Proper Names” (TIPNR) — © Tyndale House Cambridge, used under CC BY 4.0 (www.STEPBible.org).
Full Greek LSJ-derived entries (TFLSJ) are from STEPBible.org / Tyndale House Cambridge and are licensed under CC BY 4.0. Source files · CC BY 4.0 licence.
Reading Modes
The bar along the bottom of the reader switches between the four modes — Composite, Published, AI Translation, and Interlinear — and always shows which one you are in. The pill in the centre of the header is for that mode's available options: the version or base translation you are reading, your Personalised Bibles, and the interlinear word order. AI Translation currently shows a development notice rather than Bible wording.
Composite
The default reading experience. Shows a base text built from your enabled translations, with Translation Difference Symbols where wording differs.
- Tap a circled number to compare translations side by side.
- Use Verse Locks and Word Locks to keep your preferred wording, and save setups as Personalised Bibles.
- To tune the symbols, open the settings cog → All settings & library → Translation Differences. You can switch Difference Markers on or off, then choose Essential, Major, Notable, Detailed, or All. The levels describe reader significance, not whether the difference comes from manuscripts, source-language interpretation, policy, or style.
Published
Read one translation as originally published. Tap the options pill in the centre of the header — in Published mode it shows which translation you are reading — and pick a different one from the Translation dropdown. Publisher footnote markers shown in chapter text belong only to the selected translation, while Translation Difference Symbols can still appear if enabled.
AI Translation
The earlier experimental AI renderings have been withdrawn. This mode now shows a development notice while three fresh, independently translated editions are researched and reviewed: the source-transparent AISE Bible (Study Edition), the accessible AIRE Bible (Reader Edition), and the literary AIDE Bible (Dynamic Edition).
- No AI Bible text is currently published or substituted with a published English base text.
- AISE will receive the first publication priority, with Genesis especially prioritised.
- Each edition must pass source research, translation review, complete word alignment, apparatus review, and a named publication gate before it appears in the reader.
- Read the public AI translation philosophy and development overview.
Interlinear
A word-by-word view showing four rows for each word: the original Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek script, its transliteration, the English equivalent, and the Strong's number. Tap any word to open the word study strip for detailed morphology, frequency data, and definitions. Best for in-depth language study.
Exploring the Text
Symbols
OpenScripture uses two types of symbols. Translation difference markers are circled numbers () that show where translations make different wording choices. They get darker red as the difference becomes more significant — a pale marker signals a minor word-order or synonym difference, while a deep red one flags a meaning-level divergence.
Publisher footnote markers use each translation's own letters, numbers, or symbols inside a small square outline in a muted grey, keeping them visually separate from translation-difference colours. In the chapter text, publisher markers belong to the translation you are reading; in the verse drawer, online notes and cross-references are gathered from every available translation, while offline notes are limited to installed translation packages.
The line under each chapter title counts how many translation differences are marked, and you can tune what is shown from Translation Differences settings.
Verse Drawer
Tap any translation difference marker, verse number, or word to open the verse drawer. A section bar switches between three views of the same verse:
- Compare — every enabled version side by side, grouped by tradition, with Lock it in and custom translation controls.
- Word Study — a word-by-word, interlinear-style strip of the verse with the tapped word highlighted; tap any word for its word study.
- Commentary+ — separate commentary and publisher Footnotes faces from multiple sources, plus a Cross-refs view of related passages.
Your own highlights and notes for the verse open from the Note/Highlight button on the verse card, or by tapping a note indicator in the text. To move between verses, swipe the verse card left or right.
Word Study
Tap any word in the scripture text to open the word study strip in the verse drawer. It shows:
- The original language word in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek script.
- Pronunciation guide (transliteration).
- Strong's number — a standard dictionary code used by most Bible study tools.
- Grammatical analysis (morphology): part of speech, tense, person, number, etc.
- How often the word appears across the entire Bible.
- A concise lexical definition.
In the strip, source words sit above their English rendering. The alignment indications explain how closely each English word or phrase corresponds to the original-language text. Depending on the view, they appear as explanatory text, an underline joining words, a blank source or English row, or an ≈ badge:
- Direct — an original-language word corresponds directly to the English rendering shown beneath it.
- Phrase group / same phrase — two or more original-language words are translated together as one English phrase, so the individual words do not have separate one-to-one English equivalents. A single original-language word can also be expressed by a longer English phrase.
- Attached — the English word is carried by the grammar of a linked source word, such as an affix, inflection, person, or tense, but is not a separate direct translation of that word.
- Supplied — the selected translation adds the English word for natural, readable English; no independent Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek token supplies it.
- Not rendered — the original-language word is present, but the selected translation does not express it as a separate English word; its sense may be omitted or absorbed into the surrounding rendering.
- ≈ Approximate alignment — the English-to-source link is useful for study but has not been fully reviewed. OpenScripture skips it for automatic Word Lock replacement; no ≈ badge means the alignment is reasonably certain.
When a word has a Strong's number, tap BibleHub or Blue Letter Bible in the strip to open a full concordance view for that word in a new tab. Word study is available in all reading modes.
Study Notes & Commentary
The Commentary+ section of the verse drawer brings together commentary from multiple trusted sources. Every entry is attributed, and a source picker lets you read one source at a time or all of them together:
- REV Commentary (regularly updated by Spirit & Truth)
- NET Bible Translators' Notes
- Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary
- Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
- Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
- Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
- Vincent's Word Studies in the New Testament
Cross-References
The Cross-refs view in the verse drawer'sCommentary+ section shows related passages from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — one of the most comprehensive cross-reference collections ever compiled, with over 500,000 links. Tap any reference to go straight to that verse.
Textual Certainty
Textual certainty shows how confident scholars are about the manuscript reading behind each English word. It is useful when you want to see, at a glance, where the underlying text is very stable versus more debated.
- Turn it on under the settings cog → All settings & library → Textual Certainty, and choose a colour scheme: Warm, Cool, Mono, or High Contrast.
- High-certainty wording has no special marking; medium certainty adds a thin underline; low certainty uses a thicker underline with a secondary thin line.
- Where certainty data is not yet available for a passage, no marking is shown.
Translation Difference Symbols sometimes cluster near uncertain wording, because translations often diverge where the source text is less settled.
Personalising Your Bible
Personalised Bibles
A Personalised Bible is a translation plus your personal touches — "REV (Personalised)" is the REV with your Verse Locks, Word Locks, and custom translations applied. Every published translation you have enabled appears as one, and you can keep more than one on the same translation — duplicate the KJV into a "Kids KJV (Personalised)" and a "Study KJV (Personalised)", each with its own Bible-specific items. Withdrawn AI translation combinations are not listed.
- Switch between them from the options pill in the centre of the header while in Composite mode.
- Your locks and custom translations apply in every Personalised Bible by default. When saving one you can instead apply it to a single named Bible (for example "Apply to REV (Personalised) only"); that Bible-specific choice overrides the shared one there.
- Personalised Bibles are free for everyone — the free plan is limited only by how many locks and notes you can keep, not how many Bibles you use.
- Manage them from the Personalised Bibles tab on your profile page: rename a Bible (its identity stays the translation — the "(Personalised)" suffix is always shown), drag to rearrange (the same order drives the header pill picker), and remove Bibles you do not use.
- Use Duplicate to create another Personalised Bible on the same translation, with its own name and its own entry in the Composite picker. You can copy the source Bible's own (Bible-specific) locks and custom translations into the duplicate; Universal items are not copied because they already apply in every Bible. To move a single item between Universal and one Bible, use the scope control on it in the Verse Locks, Word Locks, or Custom Translations tab.
- Each translation's built-in Bible can be hidden but never deleted — Hide removes it from the list and picker while your Verse Locks, Word Locks, and custom translations are never deleted, and the Hidden section on the Personalised Bibles tab re-adds it exactly as it was. A duplicate you created is instead deleted, along with the items scoped to it (the confirmation lists them; Universal items are untouched).
Verse Locks
A Verse Lock pins one verse to the translation you choose, so Composite mode always shows that wording.
- To create one: open the verse drawer, go to Compare, choose the translation you want, tap Lock it in, then choose Everywhere or tick one or more Personalised Bibles.
- Everywhere is a fallback for all current and future Bibles. A Bible-specific lock for the same verse overrides it only in that Bible.
- Use Edit beside a locked translation to change its Bible scope. Unlock removes only the active Bible assignment; if you are viewing an Everywhere fallback, the confirmation explains that every Bible inheriting it will be affected.
- Locked text is styled like a pasted-in paper cutting, so personalised verses are easy to spot. Hover or press and hold locked wording to see the original verse.
- Free and Guest accounts can keep up to five Verse Locks. One verse still counts as one lock when you assign it to several Bibles. Locks are stored locally in Guest mode and sync across your devices once you sign in. Premium unlocks unlimited Verse Locks.
- By default, Word Locks still apply inside a verse-locked verse. To use the whole-verse wording without word substitutions, or to adjust lock colours, go to Profile → Lock Appearance.
- From the Verse Locks tab, use the Bibles control or Edit to change scope, Go to verse to find the passage, and Unlock to remove the whole visible configuration.
- A Custom Translation and its Verse Lock share one scope because the custom text itself belongs to that Bible. Change that scope under Custom Translations.
Word Locks
A Word Lock ties one original-language word (identified by its exact Strong's number) to your preferred rendering everywhere that Strong's number appears in Composite mode — like a careful find-and-replace for one lexically identified word.
- To create one: tap any word in the text, open Word Study in the verse drawer, and type the rendering you want — plain English, a transliteration, or the original script. For example, lock the Greek word λόγος (G3056) to display as “logos” or “λόγος” throughout the New Testament.
- Hover or press and hold a locked word to see the wording it replaced and, when available, the source word behind it.
- Choose Everywhere or tick one or more Personalised Bibles. A Bible-specific rendering overrides an Everywhere fallback for the same Strong's number.
- Free and Guest accounts can store up to two Word Locks; assigning one to several Bibles still counts once. Premium unlocks unlimited Word Locks.
- Manage scope and wording from the Word Locks tab; Search finds occurrences, while Edit changes the lock.
Bookmarks
Bookmarks save whole chapters (not individual verses) into named, colour-coded collections.
- Tap the bookmark icon tucked beneath the top-right corner of the chapter header, then tap a collection to save this chapter there, or tap it again to remove it.
- The bookmark icon shows a coloured ribbon when the current chapter is saved, and chapter tiles in the book picker are marked with their collection colours.
- Each collection has its own name and colour. Free accounts include 3 collections total, including the default Bookmarks collection, and Premium removes that limit.
- Bookmarks are visible in every Personalised Bible and every reading mode.
- Manage everything, including creating collections, sorting, filtering, collection names, colours, and individual removals, from the Bookmarks tab on your profile page.
Custom Translations
Write your own rendering for any verse. In the verse drawer's Compare section, tap + Add custom translation and enter your own text. Your custom rendering appears at the top of the translation list and can be locked in just like any published translation — it displays while reading in Composite mode. Custom translations are a Premium feature.
- When you create one while a Personalised Bible is active, it applies to that Bible by default. Choose Everywhere if the same wording should be available in every Bible.
- Manage them from the Custom Translations tab: search, move a translation between one Bible and Everywhere, or delete it. Edit in reader jumps back to its verse so you can change the text.
Highlights & Notes
Select a passage by pressing and dragging across the text, or tap a verse and choose Note/Highlight on the verse card. Then pick a highlight colour and, if you want one, add note text — choosing a colour with no text saves a pure highlight. Highlights and notes are stored together: each highlight can carry a note, and each note always has an associated colour. View and manage them all from the Notes & Highlights tab on your profile page, with filtering by colour and sorting by date, colour, or book order.
Display & Settings
Display Settings
Tap the settings cog in the header to open the Display panel:
- Bible Text Size — XS, S, M, L, XL, or XXL for scripture body text.
- App Text Size — S, M, L, or XL for menus, buttons, popovers, and other app controls.
- Line Spacing — Compact, Normal, Relaxed, or Spacious.
- Reading Font — Serifs, No Serifs, or Readable (a high-legibility font).
- Reading Column Width — controls the desktop reading-column width.
- Theme — Light, Sepia, Dark, or Auto.
Further reading controls — Translation Differences and Textual Certainty — live under All settings & library in the same panel.
Enabled Translations
From your profile, open Translations & Downloads to choose which translations appear throughout the app, reorder them, and toggle visibility. Translations are grouped by tradition — Ecumenical, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Jewish, and Independent — so you can quickly focus on the ones most relevant to your study. At least one translation must remain enabled. The enabled set affects which translations appear in the comparison drawer, which are included in the Composite base text, and which footnote markers show in chapter text.
Tradition Colours
Translations are colour-coded by tradition throughout the app: Protestant (blue), Catholic (purple), Orthodox (burgundy), Ecumenical (green), Jewish (teal), and Independent (grey). These colours appear on tradition badges in the comparison drawer, on translation row headers, and in lock indicators, so you can see at a glance which tradition each rendering comes from.
Offline Study & Syncing
Offline Reading & Search
Keep reading and studying even without a network connection. Free and Guest accounts can download eligible public-domain Bible translations for offline Published mode under the Translations & Downloads tab on your profile page. Premium additionally unlocks broader offline translation access and Composite and Interlinear modes. Each downloaded translation includes its full text, and search keeps working offline within the translations you have downloaded. Interlinear mode and original-language word mapping require the full Original Language Morphology & Alignment dataset.
Offline Datasets
For in-depth language and commentary study offline, you can download larger datasets from the Translations & Downloads tab on your profile page:
- Original Language Morphology & Alignment — required for Interlinear mode and full Composite word study offline.
- Textual Commentaries & Articles — study notes, translation introductions, and helper articles.
- Translation Differences & Textual Certainty — difference markers and certainty data.
Offline downloads are a Premium featurefor the mixed Translation Differences & Textual Certainty dataset as well. Online access remains free; offline free accounts retain Published mode and eligible public-domain translations only.
Automatic Synchronisation
Everything you create — notes and highlights, bookmarks, Verse Locks, Word Locks, custom translations, Personalised Bibles, and your reading settings — is saved on your device while you are offline and synchronised automatically when you reconnect. Changes from different devices are merged rather than overwritten: nothing added on one device wipes what you added on another, and if the same item was edited in two places, the most recent edit wins.
Billing & Subscriptions
Subscribing
Subscribe to Premium from the Pricingpage. On the web, payment is handled securely by Stripe; in the iOS app, by Apple In-App Purchase; and in the Android app, by Google Play. However you subscribe, Premium is tied to your OpenScripture account — one subscription covers every platform, so a subscription purchased on your phone unlocks Premium on the web too.
Cancelling
Cancel through the platform you subscribed on:
- Web (Stripe) — open Profile → Sign-in & Billing and use the billing portal to manage or cancel your subscription.
- iOS (Apple) — on your device, go to Settings → your Apple ID → Subscriptions and cancel there.
- Android (Google Play) — open the Play Store app → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions and cancel there.
Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period — you keep full Premium access until then, and you are not charged again.
Payment Issues
Update your card or payment method through the same place you would cancel: the billing portal in Sign-in & Billingfor web subscriptions, or your Apple / Google Play subscription settings for app-store subscriptions. If a payment fails, your subscription enters a short grace period — we email you and show a banner in the app so you can fix the payment. Premium continues during the grace period, and updating your payment details restores normal billing.
Refunds
Refunds follow the platform you purchased on:
- Web (Stripe) — contact support and we will help. If you are in Australia, nothing in our refund policy limits your rights under Australian Consumer Law.
- Apple purchases — request a refund from Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com. Apple decides Apple refunds.
- Google Play purchases — request a refund through your Google Play order history. Google decides Google Play refunds.
The full refund policy is in our Terms of Service.
Your Data After Premium
If your Premium subscription ends, items already synchronised to your account are not deleted. Premium-only items — such as extra Word Locks beyond the free allowance — are paused and become active again if you resubscribe. A newly restored or guest-created item that exceeds the free limit can remain device-only until there is room to synchronise it, so use Backup & Export before clearing that device. Downloaded offline translations and other offline packages are retained on the device but become inaccessible while Premium is unavailable; they become usable again when a valid entitlement returns. Explicit sign-out or account switching may clear account-scoped offline data from that device.
Translation Catalogue
The reader currently offers 19 readable published translations for day-to-day reading. The list below covers 41 titles we track for licensing, attribution, and future releases — including editions that are not yet available to read in the app. Choose which appear for you under Enabled Translations; licensing details are in Copyright & Attribution below.
Ecumenical
The latest revision of the NRSV, widely used in academia and across traditions.
Protestant (Evangelical)
A widely-used modern English translation balancing readability with fidelity to the original languages.
Protestant (Evangelical)
An essentially literal translation in the tradition of the Tyndale-KJV legacy.
Protestant (Evangelical)
Modern evangelical translation with translator notes; app text is aligned to the licensed Second Edition XML (paragraph titles stored separately from verse bodies).
Protestant
The current NASB 2020 revision, known for literal accuracy and fidelity to the original languages.
Protestant
An extremely literal translation by Robert Young, preserving Hebrew/Greek verb tenses.
Protestant
A highly literal revision of the KJV, valued for its accuracy and the basis for many modern translations.
Protestant
A modern public-domain Bible translation from the Berean Bible project, with Strong's-linked source artifacts available for alignment work.
Protestant
A form-centric, word-aligned literal translation from unfoldingWord, released under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike terms. Manually aligned to the original languages for transparent word study.
Protestant
The Berean Bible project's interlinear edition: per-word English glosses read in original-language order, with Strong's-linked Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek tagging. Public domain.
Protestant
A highly literal, form-centric whole-Bible translation from the Berean Bible project (literalbible.com), using brackets for supplied words. Public domain.
Protestant
A modern public-domain English translation maintained by eBible.org. OpenScripture uses the Protestant source edition until DC routing is separately verified.
Messianic Jewish
The Messianic Jewish edition of the public-domain World English Bible, using terms such as Yeshua, Torah, Messiah, and shofar while retaining the source all-caps LORD convention.
Independent modern
A modern public-domain English Bible edited by Wayne A. Mitchell, using text-critical Hebrew/Aramaic and Greek source editions. OpenScripture uses the plain Standard Edition from nheb.net, not the JE, Messianic, or YHWH editions.
Protestant
A highly literal modern English translation released for free use under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike terms.
Catholic
A revision of the original Douay-Rheims Bible, translated from the Latin Vulgate.
Catholic
Ronald L. Conte Jr.'s modern English translation of the Clementine Latin Vulgate, placed in the public domain by the translator.
Orthodox
Sir Lancelot Brenton's English translation of the Greek Septuagint (Codex Vaticanus).
Orthodox
The Greek text of Brenton's Septuagint (Codex Vaticanus), structurally aligned 1:1 with the English LXX-B for side-by-side display. Public domain; plain Greek text (no morphology/Strong's tagging).
Catholic
The Latin Sixto-Clementine Vulgate (1592) — the source text the Douay-Rheims (DRA) was translated from — keyed to the DRA for original-language reference. Public domain; plain Latin text (no morphology/Strong's tagging). Foundational original-language layer; the Latin morphology + interlinear bridge is the Tier B follow-up.
Independent
A living translation by Spirit & Truth Fellowship International, regularly updated with ongoing scholarship.
Orthodox
An English translation reflecting Eastern Orthodox interpretive tradition, using the Septuagint for the OT.
Ecumenical
A modern translation created by scholars from multiple denominations for broad accessibility.
Protestant (Historic)
The most influential English Bible in history. Translated from the Textus Receptus and Masoretic Text, its language has shaped English literature and worship for over four centuries.
Protestant (Evangelical)
A thought-for-thought translation prioritizing natural English readability while maintaining accuracy to the original texts.
Catholic
The standard Catholic liturgical Bible in the United States, used at Mass and in Catholic education. Translated from the original languages with reference to the Nova Vulgata.
Protestant (Evangelical)
A modern translation using "Optimal Equivalence" — balancing word-for-word precision with natural English readability. Successor to the HCSB.
Jewish
Public-domain Jewish translation of the Tanakh (OT only), sourced from the 1917 JPS edition.
Jewish
The definitive modern Jewish English translation of the Hebrew Bible, reflecting Jewish scholarship and interpretive tradition.
Scholarly / Eastern Orthodox
A deliberately literal, defamiliarising translation by Eastern Orthodox philosopher David Bentley Hart. NT only.
Jehovah's Witnesses
The official Bible translation of Jehovah's Witnesses, known for distinctive rendering choices reflecting their theology.
Catholic
A Catholic translation rooted in the French Bible de Jérusalem, using the divine name "Yahweh" throughout the Old Testament.
Independent
A Biblical Unitarian NT translation by Anthony Buzzard emphasising the distinct personhood of God the Father and Jesus the Messiah.
Ecumenical
A translation designed for clear, simple English accessible to readers of all ages and backgrounds.
Protestant (Evangelical)
A modern evangelical translation aiming for accuracy with natural English readability.
Orthodox
An Eastern Orthodox NT translation based on the Patriarchal Text of 1904, the official text of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
Messianic Jewish
A Messianic Jewish translation of the complete Bible, using Jewish naming conventions and ordering for the Old Testament.
Independent
R. H. Charles’s public-domain English translation of 1 Enoch in the conventional 108-chapter structure. The five major literary divisions are shown as editorial headings rather than verse text. Single-book translation; original-language alignment, AI generation, and most composite features do not apply.
Protestant
A careful modernization of the KJV preserving its literary cadence while updating vocabulary and grammar. Tracked for licensing; not yet readable in-app.
Protestant (Evangelical)
Eugene Peterson’s contemporary paraphrase in everyday English cadence. Tracked for licensing; not yet readable in-app.
Catholic
Current Catholic edition superseding the 1985 NJB, from the same editorial line as the Jerusalem Bible tradition. Tracked for licensing; not yet readable in-app.
Copyright & Attribution
Study fonts (NET notes, word locks, transliteration)
Hebrew, Greek, and scholarly transliteration use fonts from SIL Global: Ezra SIL (Hebrew), Galatia SIL (Greek in NET notes), and Charis SIL (transliteration in Word Locks, interlinear pronunciation, and NET notes) — each © SIL Global, used under the Open Font License 1.1. Full license files ship with the app under public/fonts/net/.