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Privacy Policy

FerventWord on the web · last changed Oct 3, 2026

FerventWord on the web keeps as little about you as it can. It counts visits with Google Analytics (see Analytics), and there is no advertising. Reading Scripture, searching and looking at reading plans need no account. An account keeps your email address and what you make here, and nothing about what you read. This page says what the site keeps, where it is kept, and every time anything leaves.

This site is separate from the FerventWord app on the iPhone, which has its own privacy policy. Nothing syncs between the two.

Reading Without An Account

Anyone can read, search, open a plan code and listen to the ESV without signing in. The site keeps nothing about a visitor who has not signed in, apart from what any web server records (see Server Logs And Backups) and the short-lived counters described under Limits. Google Analytics counts every visit, signed in or not (see Analytics).

Your Account

You sign in with a link sent to your email address. There is no password. The account holds:

  • Your email address.
  • A username made up at random and the display name “Reader”, which WordPress needs and which say nothing about you.
  • When the account was made.
  • For each device you are signed in on, when you signed in and when that sign-in runs out. Not your IP address and not your browser: WordPress normally records both, and this site leaves them off.

A sign-in link works once, for 15minutes. Until it is used or runs out, the site keeps the address it was sent to under a scrambled form of the link. When your account is made, the site remembers for 10minutes that it is new, so the next page can welcome you, and then forgets it.

You can also sign in with Apple or Google. Your browser goes to them, so they know you are signing in to this site, and they send back your email address and that they have checked it. That address is all the site keeps, exactly as for a sign-in link; an account with the same address is the same account. They also send an identifier of their own for you, which the site checks and does not keep, and the site asks for no name. With Apple’s Hide My Email, the address kept is the one Apple makes for this site, and emails to it reach you through Apple.

What Your Account Keeps

  • Highlights and notes: the book, chapter, verse and words you marked, the version, the colour, your note, the notebook it is in, and when you made it. A highlight in the ESV also keeps the words you marked, so Your Highlights & Notes can show them.
  • Notebooks: each one’s name, what you write about it, and the names you give its colours.
  • Reading plans: each plan’s name, the day it starts, its length, its version, what each of its days holds, the plan code it came from if it came from one, the code you gave it if you shared it, whether it is in the daily email, and whether you have put its end card away.
  • The daily reading email, if you ask for it: the time it goes, your time zone, and when the next one is due.
  • Your settings, bookmarks and Recent Passages, so they follow you to any browser where you sign in: what you choose in Settings (such as the text size, the layout and your Default Version); the three bookmarks in the reading bar (the chapter each holds, its version, where on the page it was, and which is on screen); and Recent Passages, the passages you opened, the version and when, so you can go back to them. At most 500 are kept, and Clear Recent Passages, on that page or in Settings, empties the list here and on the server. When you first sign in, what your browser already had is kept with your account.

Nothing records whether you read anything. Recent Passages lists places you opened so you can return to them; nothing marks a day of a plan as done, and nothing is counted. Your plans and notebooks can be taken out at any time with Export & Import.

Emails

The site sends two kinds of email: the sign-in link you ask for, and, if you ask for it, one email a day listing the day’s passages from your plans with links to read them. Both are plain text and go through the email delivery service this site uses, which receives your address and the email itself in order to deliver it, and keeps a record of delivery for as long as its own settings do. Open and click tracking are switched off: neither email contains anything that reports whether it was opened or which link was followed. Every daily email has a link that stops them, which works without signing in.

Searching

A search is a web address (/search/?q=…), so it can be bookmarked and shared. The site does not keep your searches, but the words are part of the address, so they appear in the server’s logs like any other address (see Server Logs And Backups). Search covers the BSB, KJV and ASV, which are on this site; the ESV is not searched, and nothing you search for is sent anywhere else.

The ESV

The ESV comes from Crossway’s ESV API. When a chapter is not already on hand, this site asks Crossway for it: the request comes from this site’s server, not from your device, and carries nothing about you. The site keeps at most 500 ESV verses at a time, as Crossway’s terms require, and they are not linked to anyone.

Listening To The ESV

When you tap Listen, this site asks Crossway for the chapter’s recording, sending the passage in the body of the request so it does not appear in any log, and hands your browser the recording’s address. Your browser then plays it from Crossway’s audio servers, so Crossway receives your IP address and which recording was played, as any website you visit does. What Crossway keeps is set out in its own privacy policy. This site keeps nothing about what you listen to. How many times to play a passage is remembered in your browser (see Cookies And Your Browser).

Plan Codes

When you open a plan code, this site asks FerventWord’s plan service at ferventwordministries.org for the plan. The request comes from this site’s server, not from your device. Looking at a plan does not count as adding it. The code is part of the page’s address, so it appears in the server’s logs and is sent to Google Analytics with the rest of the address.

When you give one of your plans a code (Share This Plan), this site sends the plan to the same service so that anyone who enters the code can start it: its name, its version, the day it starts, its length and what its days hold, as the file Export makes, without its schedule. Nothing about you goes with it — not your name, your email address, your account or your reading — and the request comes from this site’s server, signed so the service knows it is from this site. The service keeps the plan under its code and counts how many times the code is used to add the plan in the app; a code is yours to keep, and is only removed if it has to be taken down. This site keeps the code with your plan.

When you make a plan, the site remembers which plan it was for 10minutes — with the code you asked for and why it could not be given, if that happened — so the next page can show what you made, and then forgets it. A change to a plan that moves its days is kept the same way, for the same time, while you confirm it. The picture to share is drawn in your browser, and Invite Someone and Save The Picture hand your words and the picture to your device’s own sharing; nothing about them comes back to this site.

A plan code’s page has Report This Plan, for a name or code that should not be there. It opens your own email app with a message to [email protected] naming the code; nothing goes through this site, and what you send is up to you.

Sharing A Link

When you share a link to this site, the app or website showing it fetches the page as any visitor would, and shows its title, a sentence about it and a picture. For a plan code they are the plan’s name, its length and version, and the code, and the name only once FerventWord Ministries has approved it (until then the plan is called A FerventWord Reading Plan); for a passage, its reference, its version and the chapter’s headings from the Bible Guide; for any other page, the page’s title and the FerventWord picture. The pictures are drawn by this site from that public information, never with the words of Scripture, and are not kept. A page that is yours alone, such as one of your plans, shows only its kind of page, never its name, and nothing about you is in any of them.

Further Study And Other Links

A reading can offer to open its chapter in another study tool: FerventWord.com, Blue Letter Bible or Logos. The Bible Guide links to teaching and maps on FerventWord.com, and the ESV’s copyright line to esv.org. About FerventWord links to FerventWord Ministries and its giving page (run by Stripe), ferventword.com, and the versions’ publishers. Nothing happens unless you tap one. A tap opens that site, and the chapter goes to it in the web address, which its server records. We are not told and have no arrangement with any of them; what they keep is for their own privacy policies to say. Nothing else about your reading goes with it.

Exporting And Importing

An export is a file your browser downloads; it holds your plan or notebook and no Bible text. When you import a file, the site keeps it for 30 minutes under your account, so it can show you what the file adds before you confirm, and then it is removed.

On Your Phone And Offline

If you add the site to your home screen or read it on a phone, your browser keeps copies so you can read without a connection. All of it stays in that browser on that device:

  • The pages you read, with your highlights on them, and, if you are signed in, the next few days of your plans’ readings.
  • Never more than 500 ESV verses, none for more than a week, the least recently read going first.
  • Highlights and notes you make without a connection, until they can be saved to your account.

To fetch the coming readings, the site is asked which passages your plans hold next. It is never told what you read. Signing out, or deleting your account, tells your browser to remove everything this site kept in it. A browser that does not act on that request keeps it until you clear this site’s data or remove it from your home screen.

Analytics

The site counts visits with Google Analytics, so we can see which parts of it are used. Every page, signed in or not, loads Google’s script from googletagmanager.com, and your browser sends Google:

  • The page’s address without anything after a “?”. It names the page, and on the reader the passage you opened (/read/John_3) or on a plan code’s page the code; never the words you searched for, a version chosen in the address, or a sign-in or email link. One of your own plans is sent only as a plan (/plans/:id/).
  • The page’s title, except that the name of one of your own plans and the words of a search are left out. A published plan’s name, on its code’s page, is sent once FerventWord Ministries has approved it, since anyone with the code can see it.
  • The site you came from, by its name alone (such as google.com), never its page.
  • What any website your browser opens receives: your IP address, and what your browser says about itself (its kind, your device, the screen size and your language). Google works out a rough location, no finer than the region, and says Analytics does not keep the IP address itself.

Two cookies, _ga and _ga_…, hold a random number for 13 months, so one browser’s visits can be told from another’s. With the addresses above, that means Google holds a list of the pages that browser opened under that number. Nothing from your account goes with it: not your email address, your account, or any highlight, note, notebook or plan. Google signals and advertising features are switched off, so the visits are not joined to a Google account and are not used for ads. Google keeps each visit’s detail for 2 months; after that only totals remain. What Google does with it is for Google’s privacy policy and how Google uses information from sites that use its services to say. Google’s opt-out browser add-on, or a content blocker, stops it, and the site works just the same.

Cookies And Your Browser

The site sets one cookie of its own, and only when you sign in: WordPress’s sign-in cookie, which tells the site you are signed in and lasts 14 days or until you sign out. It is needed for the account you asked for. Signing in with Apple or Google also sets fwapp_oauth for at most 10 minutes while you are away with them: a random value that makes sure the sign-in you come back with is the one this browser started. It is removed when you return. Google Analytics sets two more on every visit, _ga and _ga_…, for 13 months (see Analytics). The site does not ask first and has no cookie banner. There are no other cookies.

Your browser’s own storage holds the following. When you are signed in, the first three are copies of what your account keeps (above), sent to it when they change; when you are not, they stay in the browser and are never sent anywhere:

  • fwapp-settings: what you choose in Settings, such as the reading text size, the verse layout, red letter and whether the passage picker asks for a verse.
  • fwapp-recent: Recent Passages, the passages you opened and the version you opened them in, with the time, so you can go back to them. At most 500 are kept; Clear Recent Passages, on that page or in Settings, empties the list.
  • fwapp-bookmarks: the three bookmarks in the reading bar: the chapter each holds, its version, where on the page it was, and which is on screen.
  • fwapp-audio-plays: how many times Listen plays a passage.
  • fwapp-sync-pending: which of those three changed while this browser could not reach the site, so they are sent when it can.
  • fwapp-audio-handoff: for a moment, when Auto-Advance has played on into the next chapter and you open it, which recording and how far it had played, so that page carries on from there. It is in this tab only, and removed as the page opens.
  • fwapp-version-habit: when you are signed in, the version you last chose from the version links while reading in bookmark one, how many times in a row you chose it, and the versions you answered No Thanks to, so that after ten in a row the site can ask once whether to make it your Default Version. The number is never shown. It stays in this browser and is never sent anywhere; only your answer Set As Default changes your account’s Default Version.
  • fwapp-kept-day: the day the coming readings were last fetched for offline reading, with a short code that changes when your plans do, so it happens once a day or when a plan changes.

Limits

To stop abuse, the site counts some requests for an hour at a time: sign-in links asked for, lookups of ESV chapters, recordings and plan codes it does not already have, codes asked for to share a plan, and sign-ins started with Apple or Google. Each count is kept under a scrambled form of your IP address, of the email address a sign-in link was asked for, or for codes, of your account’s number, and is gone within the hour. Nothing else is done with them.

Server Logs And Backups

Like every website, this one runs on a server that records each request: your IP address, the address asked for (which can name a passage, a search or a plan code), the time, and what your browser says it is. The hosting provider keeps these logs for the period its standard settings keep them, and they are used only to keep the site secure and working. Nobody reads them to see what anyone reads.

The hosting provider also keeps backups of the site, including its database, for the period its standard settings keep them. A deleted account stays in those backups until they are replaced, and is not restored from them.

Who Can See It

You can see everything your account keeps: it is all on your own pages. The people who run this site can reach its database to keep it working. Nobody else can. We do not sell, rent or share what you keep here, and we give it to no one unless the law requires it.

What We Do Not Do

  • No advertising.
  • No third-party scripts but Google Analytics (above). Everything else on a page loads from this site; the one exception is an ESV recording you choose to play.
  • Nothing you write here, a note, the name of one of your own plans or a search, is sent to Google. A published plan’s name is public, as its code is.
  • No record of whether you read anything. Recent Passages, the places you opened, is kept so you can go back to them, never counted, and you can clear it whenever you like.

Deleting Your Data

You can remove any highlight, note, notebook or plan whenever you like. Delete My Account, on your account page, deletes your account and everything it keeps at once, apart from the backups described above; export first if you want to keep anything. You can also ask us to delete it, or to tell you what it holds, at [email protected].

Changes

When the site changes what it keeps or sends, this page changes with it, and the date at the top says when.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: [email protected].