How to Cite the Bible in MLA 9th Edition

To cite the Bible in MLA 9, build the works-cited entry around the title of the published edition you actually read, italicized, followed by the version, the publisher, and the year: The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998. In the text, name that edition the first time you quote it and point to the book, chapter, and verse, with a period between chapter and verse: (The Bible, Gen. 1.22).

That period is the detail people get wrong. Nearly every Bible you have ever opened prints its own cross-references with a colon, as in Genesis 1:22, and so does APA. MLA uses a period in the citation. The MLA Style Center's own worked example reads "Gen. 1.22," and the guidance it draws on is chapter 6 of the MLA Handbook, 9th edition.

This guide covers the works-cited format, the first-mention version rule, abbreviations for the books of the Bible, and the cases that send students looking for a librarian: study Bibles with an editor, Bible apps carrying five translations at once, online Bibles where every chapter sits on its own page, and papers that quote two translations side by side.

The official MLA 9 rule

MLA has no special template for scripture. You build the entry the way you build every other entry, from the MLA format template. The MLA Style Center puts it plainly: "Create a works-cited-list entry for scriptural writings as you would for any other source: follow the MLA format template."

In practice the elements land like this:

Format:

Title of Edition. Version, Publisher, Year.

The title goes first because a Bible has no author in the MLA sense. It is italicized because you are referring to a specific published edition, and the published title might be The New Jerusalem Bible or simply The Bible. Where the book names an editor or translator, that person goes in the "other contributors" slot. Where the book carries a notation marking it as one version among several, name the version.

Two entries straight from the MLA Style Center:

The New Jerusalem Bible. General editor, Henry Wansbrough, Doubleday, 1985.

The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998.

Notice that the second one carries both a generic title and a version. That pairing is what confuses people: The Bible is the title printed on the spine, and "Authorized King James Version" is the version statement inside. Both belong in the entry.

One wrinkle worth knowing before you go looking for more guidance. MLA's published answers on scripture are split across editions. The page on verse numbers is current for the 9th edition and was published in January 2025. The pages on italics, Bible apps, and online sacred texts all carry a note saying they relate to the 8th edition. The format template did not change between those editions, so the entries still hold, but you will see that banner and it is fair to wonder. Cite the current handbook chapter as your authority and treat the older posts as worked examples of the same template.

In-text citations: name the version once, then book, chapter, verse

The first time you quote scripture, the citation has to tell your reader which edition on your works-cited page you mean. After that, it does not.

Spartanburg Community College's MLA guide states the sequence: the first in-text citation includes the full name of the edition as it appears in your works cited, plus the book, chapter, and verse. Every later citation from that same edition drops the edition name and gives the book, chapter, and verse alone.

So a paper that quotes the King James Version four times looks like this:

First quotation: (The Bible, Gen. 1.22) Later quotations: (Gen. 28.3) (Ps. 128.3) (Matt. 7.7)

The MLA Style Center's Genesis example goes one step further. When consecutive quotations come from the same book, you can drop the book name too, keeping only chapter and verse: after "(Gen. 1.22)" comes plain "(28.3)," and the citation only returns to a book name when the source changes to Psalms.

There is a further shorthand for a paper anchored on one chapter. If the book and chapter are already established, you may spell out the word verse the first time and let it stay implied afterwards. MLA's Psalm 55 example runs "wings like a dove" (verse 6), then a complaint of treachery (12–14), then words likened to drawn swords (21). Three citations, one chapter, no repetition.

Italics in your prose

The italics rule flips depending on what you are naming. A general reference to the Bible as a body of literature stays in roman type. A reference to a specific published edition takes italics. MLA's paired examples:

The first part of the Christian Bible is known as the Old Testament. The 1985 New Jerusalem Bible contains maps and a theological glossary.

The same logic covers the Talmud and the Qur'an. Mention the scripture, use roman; mention the edition on your shelf, use italics.

Worked examples

1. A standard print Bible

You are quoting the King James Version published by Oxford University Press.

Works cited: The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Oxford UP, 1998. First cite: (The Bible, John 3.16) Later cites: (Rom. 8.28)

2. A Bible with a named editor

Study Bibles and annotated editions usually credit a general editor on the title page. That person is an "other contributor."

Works cited: The New Jerusalem Bible. General editor, Henry Wansbrough, Doubleday, 1985. First cite: (The New Jerusalem Bible, Isa. 40.31)

Hope International University's MLA guide, which follows MLA 9 section 6.25, shows the same shape with the version name carrying the title slot:

New Revised Standard Version. Michael D. Coogan, editor, Oxford UP, 2018.

Either arrangement is defensible. Lead with whatever the title page actually calls the book, and keep your choice consistent across the paper.

3. A Bible with the Apocrypha

The apocryphal and deuterocanonical books are part of the version statement, so they belong in the entry itself.

Works cited: The Bible. Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha, Oxford UP, 1997. First cite: (The Bible, Tob. 4.15)

4. An online Bible where each chapter is its own page

This is the case that produces panicked emails to librarians. You quoted eleven verses from a website and every one of them lived at a different URL. You do not need eleven entries. MLA's answer is a flat no: one entry for the site covers them all, as long as a reader can navigate from that central place to the passage.

Works cited: King James Bible Online, www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/. First cite: (King James Bible Online, Gen. 1.22) Later cites: (28.3) (Ps. 128.3)

5. A Bible app carrying one translation you quote

MLA treats the app as a container holding the translation, which becomes a second container in the entry.

Works cited: The Bible. King James Version. Bible Gateway, version 42, Bible Gateway / Zondervan, 2016. First cite: (The Bible, Matt. 7.7)

6. A Bible app where you compare translations

When your point is that translations differ, name them in your prose and let the app carry the works-cited entry as the anthology containing all of them.

Prose: For Matthew 7.7, the King James Version reads, "Ask, and it shall be given you," whereas the New Living Translation reads, "Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for" (Bible Gateway). Works cited: Bible Gateway. Version 42, Bible Gateway / Zondervan, 2016.

The citation points at the app because that is where a reader goes to see both renderings side by side.

7. A version known by its own title

Some versions are conventionally known by their own titles. A scholar citing one of these may list the version name as the title of the source, which is how The Wycliffe Bible is handled.

Works cited: The Wycliffe Bible. [publisher and year of your edition]

8. Two translations in one paper

Once a second edition enters the paper, the shorthand breaks down: a bare "(Matt. 7.7)" no longer tells anyone which translation you mean. Carry the edition name in every citation from the point the second one appears.

(The Bible, Matt. 7.7) (The New Jerusalem Bible, Matt. 7.7)

Both editions get their own works-cited entry.

Special cases

Abbreviating the books of the Bible

MLA abbreviates book names inside citations. Hope International's guide states the boundary that trips people up: use the abbreviation when you are citing or referencing the text, and spell the name out when it opens a sentence, refers to the whole book, or names the author. Their contrast:

Yes: Revelation 3 begins with the letter to the church in Sardis. No: Rev 3 begins with the letter to the church in Sardis.

Inside parentheses, the abbreviation is right: (Rev. 3.1). At the head of a sentence, write Revelation. The full list of MLA's approved abbreviations lives in the MLA Handbook, 9th edition; there is no complete list published free on the MLA Style Center, so a library copy or your institution's subscription is the place to check an unusual book.

Verse numbers as arabic numerals

Write chapter and verse as numerals, always. Hope International's guide is blunt about the alternative:

Yes: John 5.8-9 No: John chapter five verses eight and nine

Why some guides show a colon

You will find university guides that print MLA Bible citations with colons. Spartanburg's own page shows "(The ESV Bible, Ezek. 1:12)" in one example and "(Matt. 2.10-13)" in another, a few lines apart. The inconsistency is real and it is not your fault for noticing it. MLA's published examples use periods, so periods are the defensible choice. If your instructor hands you a style sheet calling for colons, follow the style sheet and stay consistent.

The version has no date or publisher

Older public-domain Bibles and bare-bones websites often give you neither. Supply what the source shows and omit what it does not. An entry ending at the publisher, or at a URL, is a complete MLA entry when that is genuinely all the information available.

You are quoting the notes, not the scripture

Study Bible commentary, introductions, and footnotes are written by named scholars, and quoting them is a different act from quoting scripture. Cite that material as a work in an anthology, crediting the contributor who wrote it, with page numbers rather than chapter and verse.

Common mistakes and how to avoid them

• Using a colon between chapter and verse. It comes from the Bible's own cross-references and from APA, which does use colons. MLA's examples use a period: Gen. 1.22, not Gen. 1:22. Our guide to citing the Bible in APA 7 covers the other convention if you are writing for a psychology course.
• Naming the version in every single citation. After the first mention, the edition name is redundant, and repeating it across forty citations makes the paper harder to read. Drop it until a second edition appears.

• Leaving the Bible out of the works-cited list. Older MLA practice let some classical and scriptural works stand on in-text citations alone. The current template gives them an entry like anything else, and a marker who expects one will notice its absence.
• Italicizing "the Bible" everywhere. A general reference stays roman. Only a specific published edition takes italics, and applying italics to both blurs a distinction MLA draws deliberately.
• Creating one works-cited entry per chapter of an online Bible. MLA says one entry for the site is enough. A works-cited page with eleven near-identical entries is a symptom, and the fix takes about a minute.
• Guessing the publisher from the cover. The title page and copyright page carry the publisher and year; the cover often carries neither. Open the front matter before you type the entry.

Quick-reference table