esv: read the Bible from your terminal

esv displays passages of the ESV Bible on your terminal.

$ esv Romans 5:6-11
Romans 5:6-11

  [6] For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for
the ungodly. [7] For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though
perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-[8] but God shows
his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
[9] Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more
shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. [10] For if while we
were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much
more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. [11]
More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received reconciliation. (ESV)

download

The latest release is esv-0.3.0, released on 1 May 2025.

⤥ esv-0.3.0.tar.gz

Make sure you have the LDC compiler and libcurl installed.
Extract the archive, configure a build environment, then compile and install:

tar -xzf esv-0.3.0.tar.gz
cd esv-0.3.0
./configure
make
make install

overview

esv can display passages in text format or play audio passages. To use esv, pass it a book and a verse, such as esv Ephesians 2:8-9. Book names are case-insensitive. Pass the -a option to play an audio passage, such as esv -a Romans 8:31-39. Audio will be played through mpg123. The ESV_PLAYER environment variable can be set to play audio through another program.

esvsearch is bundled with the esv distribution, and will search the Bible for a given query. esvsearch "dog" brings up a list of passages containing, loosely, that word or phrase. Exact matches can be obtained by passing the -e option. This program uses the ESV API's search function, not a local copy of the Bible.

documentation

The esv and esvsearch programs are documented in their respective man pages. The configuration file is also documented in its own man page, esv.conf(5).

git repository

The git repository can be found at git.reformers.dev.

Maintained by Jeremy Baxter <jeremy@baxters.nz>