Type a reference, pick a translation, and the passage is inserted at the cursor as a blockquote, one verse per line with a bold verse number:

> **John 3,16** (The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible)
>
> **16** For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
> **17** For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.

Several references at once, separated by ;:

> **Genesis 1,1** (The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible)
>
> **1** In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

> **Psalm 23,1** (The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible)
>
> **1** The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

A chapter range is expanded into one section per chapter:

> **Psalm 23** (The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible)
>
> **1** The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
> **2** He makes me lie down in green pastures.

> **Psalm 24** (The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible)
>
> **1** The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it.

Prefer running prose instead of one line per verse? Switch the format:

> **John 3,16** (The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible)
>
> **16** For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son ...

Want the heading to link back to bolls.life? Turn on the source link:

> [**John 3,16** (The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible)](https://bolls.life/BSB/43/3/16/)
>
> **16** For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son ...

Annotate any verse and the command creates a note for your thoughts, embedded under the quote as a colour-coded callout:

> **16** For God so loved the world ...

> [!zettel-yellow]
> ![[Bible Notes/John 3,16 (The Holy Bible, Berean Standard Bible)]]

Features

• Insert passages via a command / hotkey.
• Reference parsing with book names, common abbreviations and book numbers (John 3:16, 1 Cor 13, Ps 23, 43 3:16, Gen 1:1).
• Multiple references at once, separated by ; (John 3:16; Psalm 23).
• Chapter ranges (Psalm 3-5), inserted as one section per chapter.
• Footnotes from the source are rendered as Markdown footnotes.
• Three preset output formats, a custom template, and an optional source link.
• Keyword search across a translation, inserting the passage you pick.
• Annotate a verse: create a separate note for your thoughts and embed it under the verse.
• Parallel translations: the main translation plus any number of additional translations at once.
• Every language offered by bolls.life, with the translation list and book-name matching following the chosen language.
• An offline cache: everything fetched once is reused, so it keeps working without a connection.

Supported languages

Every language available on bolls.life can be selected. The translation list and book-name matching follow the chosen language, so you can type book names as that translation writes them (for example Juan, Selon Jean or João). Books can always be given by their number (1-66).

German and English additionally understand common abbreviations (Joh, 1 Mos, Psalm, John), independently of the selected translation.

Usage

1. Open a note and place the cursor where the passage should go.
2. Run a command from the command palette (Ctrl/Cmd+P), or assign it a hotkey under Settings → Hotkeys:
   • Simple Bible Fetcher: Insert Bible quote: enter a reference.
   • Simple Bible Fetcher: Insert Bible quote (parallel translations): inserts the reference in every translation listed under Parallel translations.
   • Simple Bible Fetcher: Search Bible (keyword): search the selected translation for a word or phrase and pick a hit to insert.
   • Simple Bible Fetcher: Annotate verse (create note): put the cursor on an inserted verse, or select one or more verses, then name the note and pick a colour; it is created and embedded under the last selected verse (see below).
3. Enter a reference (or search term) and press Enter.

Reference syntax

The : and , separators are interchangeable (John 3:16 and John 3,16 both work). Book names are matched case-insensitively and ignore dots and spaces, so 1. Samuel, 1 Samuel and 1sam all resolve to the same book. The heading shows the book name as the chosen translation writes it.

A chapter range such as Psalm 3-5 is shorthand for Psalm 3; Psalm 4; Psalm 5: each chapter is inserted as its own section with its own heading, and its footnotes follow that section. The order is the same whether you write Psalm 3-5 or Psalm 5-3. A chapter range cannot be combined with a verse specification (Psalm 3-5:2 is rejected); write the verses per chapter instead.

Text cleanup

The raw bolls.life text is normalized before it is inserted:

• Footnotes can be shown or stripped (see the Footnotes setting). When shown, the source markers become Markdown footnotes ([^1]) and the matching text from bolls.life is appended after each passage's section, with cross-references linking back to bolls.life. Translations without footnotes are unaffected.
• Formatting is preserved: source italics (<i>) and bold (<b>/<strong>) become Markdown *…* and **…**. Any other tags are stripped.
• Missing spaces are added after sentence punctuation, because the source occasionally glues sentences together (…mein Gott!Erleuchte… becomes …mein Gott! Erleuchte…).
• Square brackets are escaped if present ([ertönt] becomes \[ertönt\]), so words the translation added for clarity render literally instead of being treated as Markdown syntax.

Settings

Custom template

With Format → Custom template you control the output yourself. The passage template is rendered once per passage; {verses} is the verse template applied to each verse and joined by the verse separator.

The three presets are just built-in templates; the default custom template reproduces Blockquote, bold verse number.

Search

The Search Bible (keyword) command searches the whole selected translation for a word or phrase. Matches are listed with their reference and a short text preview in which the search term is highlighted, up to 100 results. Picking one inserts that passage with the current format settings.

Annotating verses

The Annotate verse (create note) command lets you attach your own thoughts to a verse after you have inserted a passage. Put the cursor on the verse you want to annotate, or select one or more verses, and run the command: it reads the reference and its heading, creates a note and embeds it in a zettel callout just below the quote. A selection spanning several verses becomes a range such as Johannes 3,16-18. A selection that spans several chapters is split per chapter, so each chapter gets its own note and callout directly below that chapter's verses, for example Markus 1,43-44 and Lukas 1,1-2 from a selection over both.

> **16** Denn so hat Gott die Welt geliebt …

> [!zettel-yellow]
> ![[Bible Notes/Johannes 3,16 (Schlachter 2000)]]

The note is embedded inside a zettel-<color> callout, drawn as a post-it with an always-visible coloured border. When you create a note, the dialog offers a dropdown of the ten built-in colours and preselects the Default note color: yellow, orange, red, green, teal, blue, purple, pink, gray and brown. Each is defined in styles.css, so to use your own colours override them in a CSS snippet, for example: body .callout[data-callout="zettel-yellow"] { --callout-color: 212, 160, 23; }.

Where the note goes is set by two settings, like the Daily Notes plugin. The Note folder field has the same vault-folder autocomplete (blank means the vault root), and Note format is the file name, which understands {title}, {reference}, {translation}, {book}, {chapter}, {verse} and {verses} and may contain subfolders, for example {book}/{chapter}/{reference}. The default format is {title}. When it contains {title} the command asks for a title (prefilled with the reference and the translation, e.g. Johannes 3,16 (Schlachter 2000)); without {title} no title is asked and the note is named from the format.

The quote stays a quote; the embedded note is your commentary and is created empty, so you just write. The reference already shows as the note title. The note opens right away, by default in a split to the right (the Note opens setting switches between split, new tab or not at all). Clicking the embedded note can open it in a split or a new tab too, via the Note opens on click setting (Current pane keeps Obsidian's own click behaviour). Because the note is a normal file you can also link to it, search it and collect it with backlinks or Dataview. If a note with that path already exists it is reused, not overwritten. This works with the Blockquote, bold verse number and One blockquote per verse formats, which label each verse with **{number}**; the running-text format has no per-verse line to anchor to.

With a Custom template the command reads the rendered Markdown back, so it requires the same two patterns: each verse line must contain **{number}** (for example **16** text) and the passage heading must contain **{reference}** (optionally followed by (translation), as in **John 3,16** (BSB)). If your template drops the bold verse number or the bold heading, the command finds no verse and shows a notice instead. The default custom template keeps both and works. The callout itself is a self-contained block, so it never swallows the verses below it, whatever the format.

Parallel translations

The Parallel translations setting takes a comma-separated list of additional translation codes, for example LUT, ELB. The command Insert Bible quote (parallel translations + main) always inserts the main translation first, then every listed translation, in the order given. Entering a single code therefore yields two translations, not one:

Main Translation S00 plus Parallel translations LUT gives:

> **Das Evangelium nach Johannes 3,16** (Schlachter 2000)
>
> **16** Denn so \[sehr\] hat Gott die Welt geliebt, dass er seinen eingeborenen Sohn gab, damit jeder, der an ihn glaubt, nicht verlorengeht, sondern ewiges Leben hat.

> **Johannes 3,16** (Luther (1912))
>
> **16** Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt, daß er seinen eingeborenen Sohn gab, auf daß alle, die an ihn glauben, nicht verloren werden, sondern das ewige Leben haben.

If a listed code equals the main translation, it is inserted only once. Each translation is inserted with all of its references together, and each reference's footnotes follow that reference's section. Multiple references are still separated by ;.

Offline cache

Fetched chapters, book lists and translation metadata are cached and reused on later runs, so passages you have already looked up work without a connection. The cache lives in the plugin's own data (data.json) alongside the settings. It is unlimited and has no expiry. To clear it, remove the cache key from that file; deleting the whole file also resets the settings.

Installation

Manual

Copy main.js, manifest.json and styles.css into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/simple-bible-fetcher/ and enable the plugin under Settings → Community plugins.

From source

npm install
npm run build

Then copy the three files above into your vault, or symlink the project folder into <vault>/.obsidian/plugins/simple-bible-fetcher.

Development

npm install
npm run dev     # watch build
npm run build   # typecheck + production build

Tests

The test suite runs on Vitest with jsdom. The Obsidian API is replaced by a stub (test/obsidian-stub.ts), and the bolls.life HTTP layer is driven by fixtures (test/fixtures.ts), so the tests never hit the network.

npm test              # run the suite once
npm run test:watch    # watch mode
npm run test:coverage # run with a coverage report
npm run typecheck:test # type-check the tests too

The suite covers reference parsing and book resolution, text cleanup and footnotes, the output presets and the custom template, parallel translations and their footnote placement, keyword search, the persistent cache, settings persistence and the plugin commands, modals and settings tab. Coverage is enforced at 100 % for statements, branches, functions and lines; a drop fails the coverage run.

Because the suite runs against a stub rather than a real vault, it proves the logic, not the Obsidian integration. A manual smoke test in Obsidian is still worth doing before a release.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later. See LICENSE.