You wouldn’t think it but it’s true you can’t quote extensive passages from the Bible even if the gospel is free!
Every now and then over the course of my editing Christian books and coaching Christian authors, I have been asked about what are the restrictions on quoting Scripture. Here’s my nice and neat answer. I hope it helps.
Many times, you will not need to get permission to quote Scripture IF you use it sparingly. Ideally, people are coming to your book to read your thoughts about the topic. They can read the Bible themselves. So if you are using Scripture to provide evidence for a statement you are making, that's perfect.
To find out a little more about what the word count limits are for quoting different Bible versions:
1. Visit BibleGateway.com.
2. Go to the list of Bible versions.
3. Click on the version in question.
4. Then click on Copyright Information tab.
The publisher details will be there and sometimes the copyright restrictions will be listed there as well. When that info is not there, you will need to contact the publisher or investigate the publisher's permissions page on their website to find out more.
Usually, the word count allowance for quoting Scripture is fairly high. But, again, I would not recommend quoting so much Scripture that you need to ask for permission. It can get expensive too. And just in case it helps, the King James Version of the Bible is in public domain, so that means that there are no copyright restriction and permission is not needed to quote it at all.
