Verse of the Day

verseOfTheDay returns a curated verse for a given date. The selection comes from a hand-maintained list, so it is a deliberate choice rather than a random pick — the same date returns the same reference every time.

GraphQL

query {
  verseOfTheDay(translation: "eng-web") {
    reference
    text
  }
}

cURL

curl https://bibleql.org/graphql \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BIBLEQL_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  --data '{"query":"query { verseOfTheDay(translation: \"eng-web\") { reference text } }"}'

Ruby

require "bibleql"

client = BibleQL::Client.new(
  api_key: ENV.fetch("BIBLEQL_API_KEY"),
  api_url: "https://bibleql.org/graphql"
)

passage = client.verse_of_the_day(translation: "eng-web")

puts passage.reference
puts passage.text

Node.js

import { BibleQLClient } from "bibleql-js";

const client = new BibleQLClient({
  apiKey: process.env.BIBLEQL_API_KEY!,
  apiUrl: "https://bibleql.org/graphql",
});

const passage = await client.verseOfTheDay({
  translation: "eng-web",
});

console.log(passage.reference, passage.text);

Response

{
  "data": {
    "verseOfTheDay": {
      "reference": "Philippians 1:21",
      "text": "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."
    }
  }
}

Arguments

Argument	Default	Notes
translation	eng-web	Any translation identifier
date	today	An ISO 8601 date, YYYY-MM-DD

A specific date

query {
  verseOfTheDay(translation: "spa-rv1909", date: "2026-01-01") {
    reference
    text
    translationName
  }
}

Because the curation is by date and the text is by translation, the two are independent: the same day's verse can be rendered in any translation you like.

It returns a Passage

The return type is Passage, not Verse — the verse of the day is sometimes a short range rather than a single verse. So verses may contain more than one entry, and text is the joined form:

query {
  verseOfTheDay {
    reference
    text
    verses {
      bookName
      chapter
      verse
      text
    }
  }
}

Do not assume verses has exactly one element.

Caching

The result for a given date and translation is stable, which makes it ideal to cache for the rest of the day. A daily widget should fetch once, not once per page view.

If you display it in a user's local timezone, be aware the default date is resolved server-side. For anything timezone-sensitive, pass date explicitly rather than relying on the default.