Have you ever read the Bible all the way through, from beginning to end? It’s a major reading commitment, but one that is well worth the effort. But given the Bible’s length and the difficulty of some of its passage, what’s the best way to start reading the Bible?

A Bible reading plan is a reading schedule that help readers persevere by breaking the Bible text down into short daily readings. Bible Gateway has a collection of Bible reading plans available online—here’s how to use Bible Gateway’s reading plans.

First, visit the new Bible Gateway preview site.

Look at the navigation menu on the left side of the site for the Reading Plans link:

Clicking that link brings you to the Reading Plans page, where you can choose a Bible reading plan in the version and style of your choice. (If you plan to return here each day to do your reading, we recommend bookmarking the Reading Plans page in your web browser for easy access.)

Use the drop-down menus to select the Bible reading plan you want, and the Bible version you’d like to use for the reading:

The Reading Plan drop-down lets you choose from the several (as of this writing, seven) different reading plans available on Bible Gateway. Each of these reading plans walks you through the Bible, but each is organized in a unique way. One begins at the beginning of the Bible and marches straight through to the end; another combines a short Old and New Testament reading together for each day’s reading; and one guides you through only the New Testament. You can read a full description of each plan by clicking the About reading plans link.

The Version drop-down lets you select from any of the dozens of Bibles in Bible Gateway’s library. Your daily reading will appear in the version and language of your choice.

When you’ve selected a reading plan and a Bible version, press Go and you’ll be taken to the current day’s reading. Here’s an example reading plan page for May 26.

You can subscribe to a reading plan via RSS through the RSS button on the right side of the page. In addition, you can navigate forward or back through the reading plan schedule by using the calendar in the top right:

(Note: most reading plans begin at the beginning of the calendar year, January 1. If you start a reading plan later in the year, you’ll begin reading at whatever point the reading plan has reached at the date you start. For now, the only way to go back and start with the January 1 reading is to use the calendar to skip back to the beginning of the year.)

Many people prefer to receive their daily Bible reading as an email. To have a daily reading from a Bible reading plan emailed to you each day, visit the Reading Plan page, scroll down, and select the reading plan you’d like to receive. (Currently only a few reading plans are available via email, but we hope to add more in the future.)

That’s it! If you’ve never read through the entirety of the Bible, we hope this makes the prospect less daunting.