The Daily Office Lectionary: the Bible over two years

How the two years work

“The Daily Office Lectionary is arranged in a two-year cycle,” the prayer book explains on page 934. Year One begins on the First Sunday of Advent before an odd-numbered year, and Year Two before an even-numbered one. For the years this site covers, that means Year Two from November 30, 2025, Year One from November 29, 2026, and Year Two from November 28, 2027.

Nearly every day has three lessons: one from the Old Testament or the Apocrypha, one from the Gospels, and one from the rest of the New Testament. Two can be read in the morning and one in the evening, and the prayer book suggests reading the Gospel “in the evening in Year One, and in the morning in Year Two.” If you want two lessons at each office, “the Old Testament Reading for the alternate year is used as the First Reading at Evening Prayer.” The Daily Office app and this site follow that rubric, so 96% of the Old Testament lessons are heard in both years: in the morning in their own year, and in the evening in the other.

Holy Days have their own lessons (pages 996–1000), which take the place of the course for that day. The psalms run on a separate seven-week cycle, and each year appoints all 150 psalms. They aren’t charted below, but you’ll find them all in the Psalter.

What the course reads

• New Testament260 of 260chapters, 233 of them in both years
• Old Testament477 of 779chapters (61%), leaving out the Psalms
• Apocrypha59 of 163chapters, from 5 of 10 books

Across the whole Bible, the two-year course reads from 796 of 1202 chapters, 465 of them in full. Year One draws on 523 chapters and Year Two on 564.

Every chapter, book by book

Each square is one chapter, grouped in tens. Hover over a square to see the year and office it’s read in, or click a book’s name to see all of its lessons.

• Year One only
• Year Two only
• Both years
• Half filled: only part of the chapter
• Not in the two-year course

Books read three times or fewer

These books come up only a few times in the whole lectionary, so instead of pages of their own, their lessons are listed here.

Obadiah

Nahum

Zephaniah

2 Esdras

Baruch

Philemon

2 John

3 John

Jude

Books the lectionary skips

The lectionary never reads from 1 Chronicles, Song of Solomon, 1 Esdras, Tobit, Prayer of Manasseh, or 2 Maccabees. Part of the Prayer of Manasseh does turn up in the offices, though, as the canticle A Song of Penitence.

About this chart

The chart is built from the lectionary tables of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. The two-year course on pages 936–995 sets each square’s color; Holy Day lessons show up when you hover over a square and on each book’s page. A square is half filled when the course reads only part of the chapter. Verses in parentheses, which the prayer book marks as optional, aren’t counted, but lessons the tables allow as substitutes, such as Judith in place of Esther, are. Chapter and verse numbers follow the World English Bible, and in a few places (Romans 16:25–27, 3 John 15) they differ from the prayer book’s. The Apocrypha row covers the books named in Article VI of the Articles of Religion, except the additions to Esther and Daniel, which don’t have chapters of their own.