Our reading planner is based on "The Bible Companion" that was authored by Robert Roberts back in the 1800's. The Bible Companion gives three specific readings for each day of the year. The three readings are two from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament each day. In any given year, the readings you do on a particular date will be the same from year to year. The plan is designed to take you through the New Testament twice per year and the Old Testament once per year.

e-Sword reading plans simply consist of a set number of readings. Each reading may be one or more chapters from a single book. In order to create the Bible Companion plan in e-Sword format, we had to have three e-Sword readings for each day in the Bible Companion. There are a few exceptions:

• Due to its length, the Bible Companion breaks Psalm 119 up over three days. Since e-Sword reading plans do not accommodate partial chapters, the entire Psalm 119 is repeated as the middle reading over three days.
• The Bible Companion combines 2 John and 3 John as the New Testament reading for one day. Since e-Sword plans cannot accommodate a reading that covers multiple chapters, an extra reading is included for those days (so you will do four readings on those days).

The other consideration with e-Sword reading plans is that they are not date based at all. This is actually a good thing if you want to start reading the Bible today and finish in a year; however, if you want to follow the Bible Companion schedule, and have e-Sword start at the correct reading, it can be a bit of a hassel if you have to go through months of readings marking them as having been read in order to have e-Sword start in the right spot to begin with. In order to make this a bit simpler for you, we have links below to 12 versions of the e-Sword plan. They all have the complete plan; however, except for the first one, each of them has all of the readings marked complete through the corresponding month. For example, if it is June 10, download the June version (which has all of the readings from January 1 through May 31 marked as completed), and you will only have to mark as complete nine days of readings before being on schedule.

In order to use the plan, download the version into the folder that your e-Sword installation keeps its user data. You can find out what that folder is by opening the e-Sword Bible Reading window (tools -> Bible Reading) and clicking the folder icon at the lower left side of the window. After you have downloaded the file, it will be available as one of the reading plans in the drop down box on the bottom left of the Bible Reading window.