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bible-gateway: A Two-Edged Sword in Emacs

Kristjon Ciko (he/him) - kristjoc@uio.no

Format: 20-min talk ; Q&A: BigBlueButton conference room Etherpad: https://pad.emacsconf.org/2026-bible
Etherpad: https://pad.emacsconf.org/2026-bible
Status: Waiting for video from speaker

Description

bible-gateway is a simple Emacs package that fetches content from https://BibleGateway.com — verses, passages, search results — directly into Emacs.

Unlike other approaches to reading Bible text in Emacs, it doesn't require installing extra modules, downloading zip files of Bible text, maintaining a local database, or signing up for an API key or subscription. Everything happens over plain HTTP/HTML scraping. It stores nothing on disk except a small cache for the verse of the day, so Emacs doesn't refetch it on every startup. It supports 14 Bible versions in different languages that are in the public domain, all fetched live, with no per-language downloads.

In this short talk, I'll go through the main features with quick demos:

  • Verse of the day, usable as an emacs-dashboard footer or a *scratch* buffer message

  • Insert a Bible passage at point

  • Read a passage in a dedicated buffer, with n/p verse-by-verse navigation

  • Listen to a Bible chapter as audio, opened in the browser

  • Search the Bible by keyword, with clickable, paginated results

  • Follow a daily reading plan from a CSV file, with automatic progress tracking

  • Compare two Bible translations side by side in one window

  • Memorise verses using a touch-typing practice mode with live feedback

  • Switch between the 14 supported Bible versions/languages

About the speaker:

I am a postdoc at the University of Oslo, working on networking, transport protocols, and Wi-Fi. I have been using Emacs since 2020, and I now use it for nearly everything — email, Zulip, org-mode, LaTeX, and coding in C/C++, Python, and various scripting languages. I initially built the bible-gateway package to show the verse of the day in the emacs-dashboard footer. Over time it grew into a fuller toolkit for daily Bible reading, preparing devotions, and memorising Scripture — all without leaving Emacs.

Questions or comments? Please e-mail kristjoc@uio.no

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