Making Your First API Call

Before you begin, make sure you have:

• An active API.Bible account with 
• A verified email address
• Access to your API key

This guide will walk you through finding your API key and making your first successful API call using our interactive documentation.

#1: Copy your API Key and visit our API Docs page

First, log into your existing developer account.

In the top-right corner of your dashboard, copy your API Key. Then, click this link to visit the API Docs. You can always navigate there manually by clicking “References” in the top navigation and choosing “API Docs” from the dropdown.

From this new page, we can try out an example API call. In the left sidebar, you’ll see a list of all the  endpoints you can call. To begin, we’ll get a list of all Bibles available in your account.

#2: Discover available Bibles

1. Click “Bibles” in the left sidebar, then “List Available Bibles”.
2. You’ll see cURL command for /bibles/{bibleId} . On desktop, this will be on the right side of the screen. Click the“Test Request” button beneath the cURL command.
3. On the left side of this new window, you’ll see an “Authentication” section with two inputs: “Name” and “Value”. Paste your API key into the Value field in the Authentication section. This authenticates the request and allows API.Bible to identify your account and permissions.
4. In the top of the window, click the black “Send” button to make your request. You should see the response come in on the right.  Congratulations!
5. A successful response will return a JSON object containing the Bibles available to your account. If you receive an error, verify that your API key was entered correctly and that your account has been verified. For now, let’s copy the value of the first “id” in the response. We’ll use it in the next API call we’ll make together.

#3: Get a passage

Next, let’s retrieve a passage from the Bible.

1. In the left sidebar, click “Passages”, then “Get a Passage”.
2. Like before, let’s click the “Test Request” button for this cURL request.
3. Your API Key will be pre-filled in the left side of the screen, within the “Authentication” section.
4. Within the “Variables” section (below “Authentication”), you’ll find two key/value pairs: “bibleId” and “passageId”. These will be pre-filled with example values (Genesis 1:1 - Genesis 2:1, fetched from the Free Bible Version).
5. To test everything out, let’s click the “Send” button at the top of the window.
6. On the right side of the window you should see your response come in.
7. If you would like, you can replace the “bibleId” we had pre-filled with the one you copied from the previous request we made.

Next Steps

Now that you've successfully made your first API call, you can:

• Retrieve books, chapters, verses, and passages
• How to Monitor Your Usage
• Explore available Bible translations at api.bible/bibles 
• Review the full API documentation at docs.api.bible