Bible verse tattoo ideas and designs

Choose the translation before the font

Pick the wording you actually hear in your head, then count it. Translations run from formal and archaic to plain and modern, and the length moves with the style. A long formal rendering of a two verse passage can reach 180 characters, which at a readable size is three or four lines and about 15 cm of width, and that rules out several placements before you have chosen anything else.

If you grew up with a particular translation, use that one. The version read aloud in your family is the one you will hear when you look at your arm, and a wording that is not yours reads like a quotation from a stranger. If you are starting fresh, write the candidates out by hand and see which one you still like on the fourth reading.

Translations people usually choose between

• King James, formal and archaic, longer wording and the most recognizable cadence
• New King James, the same cadence with modernized spelling and pronouns
• New International Version, plain modern English and usually the shortest
• English Standard Version, close to the older wording but easier to read
• New Living Translation, the most conversational and the loosest

Reference format, line breaks and letter height

The reference can be written three ways and they look nothing alike. John 3:16 is compact and sits under a line of text like a signature. John chapter 3 verse 16 spelled out is longer and reads as part of the sentence. Or the verse text alone with no reference at all, which is what most people choose for long passages. Mixing formats across two tattoos is the thing people notice years later.

Line breaks go at clause boundaries. Break after a comma, after a conjunction, or where you would pause reading it aloud, and never in the middle of a prepositional phrase. Then set the lines so each is within about 20 percent of the others in length, because lines of wildly different widths look like an accident rather than a choice.

Proofreading, and why it is not optional

Print the text at final size. Not on a screen, on paper, at the exact dimensions it will be on your skin. Then read it backwards, word by word, from the last word to the first, because reading forwards your brain repairs errors without telling you. Check the reference numbers separately from the words, since chapter and verse get swapped more often than letters get misspelled.

Then have two other people check it, and make one of them someone who knows the verse. Once the stencil is on, read it in a mirror before the artist starts, and this time check the spacing between words rather than the spelling you have already checked four times. No artist will be annoyed by any of this. They have all tattooed something a client approved and then queried afterward.

The errors that actually happen

• A swapped chapter and verse, so 3:16 becomes 16:3
• A doubled or missing word at a line break, usually the word just before it
• Two different apostrophe shapes in one piece, one straight and one curly
• A capital letter the translation does not use, usually on a pronoun
• Letter spacing that closes up in one word and opens out in the next

Verses people ask for, placement and aging

The most requested references are short and about endurance: Philippians 4:13, Joshua 1:9, Jeremiah 29:11, Proverbs 3:5-6, Isaiah 41:10, Romans 8:28, 2 Timothy 1:7, Psalm 23:4 and Psalm 46:5. One thing worth knowing about that last one. The line that circulates as a tattoo, "God is within her, she will not fall", is the first half of the verse, and the New International Version continues "God will help her at break of day".

Lettering wants a long flat run. The outer or inner forearm along the length of the arm is the most readable placement and the most stable. The ribs photograph beautifully and are the worst choice for a long line, because the skin there stretches with every breath. Script ages by closing its counters, the enclosed spaces inside a, e and o, so an artist who draws those loops a little open on day one is doing you a favor.