A simple way to keep reading

Five Day Bible in a Year — Calendar Downloads

This site turns the Five Day Bible Reading Plan into a calendar you can import into Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook. Choose a year and Bible translation to generate an iCal calendar with links to each day’s readings.

52 weeks of readingsFive readings per weekPassage links included

1. Import into a new calendar

Create a separate calendar for the Bible readings. Do not import them into your existing personal calendar.

2. Delete each event after reading

When you finish that day’s passages, delete the event. The readings left in your calendar will show what you have yet to read.

For the printed Read the Bible in a Year plan and other printable resources, visit FiveDayBibleReading.com.

Choose your calendar

Select one Bible version and one year. The download is an .ics calendar file.

Choose from the English Bible translations listed by Bible Gateway. Some versions are partial editions and may not contain every passage in this reading plan. See Bible Gateway’s full catalogue.

When selected, Bible Gateway opens each reading without a version specified, so it can use your last-used or default version.

Generate and download iCal

Preparing calendar…

Tips for importing
• Import one file into a new calendar. Importing another version into that same calendar may create duplicate events.
• Use a separate calendar for each year. You can then turn a year on or off without cluttering your main calendar.
• These are downloaded calendar files. If this website changes later, your imported calendar will not update automatically.

Import into Apple Calendar (Mac, iPhone or iPad)

For a separate calendar, create the calendar first, then import the file into it. This makes it easy to show, hide or remove the reading plan.

On a Mac

  1. Open Apple Calendar.
  2. Choose File → New Calendar. Select iCloud if you want it to sync to your Apple devices, then name it (for example, “Bible Reading 2028 ESV”).
  3. Choose File → Import, select the downloaded .ics file, then choose the new calendar as the destination.

Depending on your macOS version, you can also drag the .ics file into Calendar and select the destination calendar.

On iPhone or iPad

  1. First create a new calendar: open Calendar, tap Calendars → Add Calendar → Add Calendar, name it, and save.
  2. Download the .ics file on your device, or send it to yourself and open the attachment in Files or Mail.
  3. Tap the file and follow the calendar import prompts. If your iOS version doesn't offer a destination calendar, import it on a Mac into the iCloud calendar you created.

Menu wording varies between iOS/iPadOS versions. Importing into an iCloud calendar makes it available on devices using the same Apple Account.

Keep it separate
One year per calendar lets you toggle it on or off without cluttering your main calendar.

Before you import

Choose the year and translation above and download the file. If you've already imported a version, remove the old calendar before importing it again to avoid duplicates.

Import into a new Google Calendar

Create the destination first.
Google Calendar imports events into a calendar you select; it doesn't automatically create a separate calendar from the .ics file.

  1. Open Google Calendar in a computer browser.
  2. Beside Other calendars, click + and choose Create new calendar. Name it (for example, “Bible Reading 2028 ESV”) and click Create calendar.
  3. Open Settings (gear icon) → Import & export.
  4. Under Import, select the downloaded .ics file and choose the new calendar as the destination.
  5. Click Import. Check the calendar list to make sure the events appear in the new calendar.

Google's .ics import is done on a computer, not in the mobile app. Imported events do not automatically sync with the source file.

Google's official import instructions ↗

Import into a new Outlook Calendar

Make a blank calendar first.
Outlook's web import flow lets you choose a destination calendar.

  1. Open Outlook Calendar.
  2. Select Add calendar → Create blank calendar. Name it and save.
  3. Select Add calendar → Upload from file.
  4. Browse to the downloaded .ics file, then select the new calendar in the destination dropdown.
  5. Click Import.

In classic Outlook for Windows, the import wizard may offer Open as New. Menu names differ between classic Outlook, new Outlook and Outlook on the web.

Microsoft's official import instructions ↗