tra.VER:ture – Obsidian plugin

traverture (n.): The act of traversing text to find, convert, and reformat scripture references – a turning across formats, translations, and styles. From Latin trans- ("across") + vertere ("to turn") + -ura (action/result).

A scripture reference parser, formatter, and viewer for Obsidian. Automatically creates interactive links with verse previews; allows parsing selection or entire documents into a searchable, sortable sidebar table. Invenire et convertere ("To find and convert").

Security and Privacy

See SECURITY.

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Features

• Automatic reference detection – Scripture references are automatically detected in both View and Edit modes; works with most book name variants and common abbreviations (e.g., "2 Sam.", "II Samuel", "2Sa"); references can also be force-detected by wrapping them in {{ }} (e.g., {{Song of Solomon 1:1}}); see Known Limitations for edge cases

• Verse preview modal – Click any reference to open a modal with the full scripture text¹ (with cross-reference and footnote tooltips), a study-note pane (where available) and buttons to copy the text, or open in JW Library² or JW.ORG³; Ctrl/Cmd+click opens references directly in JW Library (if installed)

• Sidebar table – Parse a selection or entire document into a searchable, sortable table with columns for Original, Full, Standard, and Official name formats, BCV codes, and chapter and verse numbers; features include:

  • Accent-insensitive search/filter
  • Sort by any column (ascending/descending/original order)
  • Column visibility toggles
  • Output language dropdown with live book name translation
  • Option to render book names in all-caps
  • Option to filter out duplicate entries
  • Copy table (with current filter/sort, etc.) to clipboard (TSV format)

• Insert citation – Replace a scripture reference with the full verse text¹; two formats available:

  • Reference: "verse" – preserves verse numbers
  • "verse" (Reference) – plain text without verse numbers

• Reformat references – Convert references between Full (e.g., "1 Corinthians"), Standard (e.g., "1 Cor."), and Official (e.g., "1Co") name formats; works on selections or entire documents

• Multi-language support – Parse references in any supported language, and display or fetch verse text in a different language

  • Supported languages: ASL, Cebuano, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Haitian Creole, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese (simplified), Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Tagalog, Ukrainian
    • ASL (American Sign Language) is available as an output language only; links open directly to the video segment for the verse range

• Per-note language override – Set a language property in a note's frontmatter to override the source language for that note alone (e.g. language: de); accepts the language code, symbol, vernacular name, or English name

• Desktop and mobile support

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Settings

• Source language – Language of the scripture references in your notes
  • Can be overridden per-note (see above)
• Output language – Language for displaying book names and fetching verse text
• Modal title format – How references are displayed in the verse preview title (Full, Standard, Official)
• Link color – Color for reference links ("Theme default" uses the vault's external-link color); changing this requires restarting Obsidian
• Auto-detect references – Toggle automatic detection without {{ }} markers

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Known Limitations

• Whole books (like "James") are not detected unless preceded by a number (e.g., "1 John"). Use braces if detection is desired (e.g., {{Obadiah}})
• "Song of Solomon" and its variants are not auto-detected. Use {{Song of Solomon 1:1}} to force detection
• Ambiguous references like "1 John 5:3; 2 John 4" may parse incorrectly as "1 John 5:3; 2" (as in, 1 John chapter 2) and "John 4". Force detection with braces: 1 John 5:3; {{2 John 4}}
• Changing the source language in settings affects all open Reading Views of notes without a frontmatter override, and changing a note's language frontmatter affects that note's Reading View; in both cases the affected view is re-rendered, which may cause a brief flicker

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Performance

Depending on the length of the scripture passage and the device, initial verse lookup requires a network request and may take a moment; parsing large documents on mobile may take a few seconds

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Installation & Updating

1. In your vault's .obsidian/plugins/ directory, make a directory (folder) called traverture, if you don't already have one
2. Download main.js, styles.css and manifest.json and put them in that directory (over-writing to update)
3. If not already enabled, enable the plugin in Obsidian Settings → Community plugins
4. Configure source and output languages in the plugin settings (if installing for the first time)

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Feedback, etc.

Feel free to get in touch and post any issues and/or suggestions

My other Obsidian plugins:

• con[VER]sum: GitHub repo, Obsidian Community
• in(REF)ens: GitHub repo, Obsidian Community
• mu/TEX/tum: GitHub repo, Obsidian Community

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Footnotes

1. Bible citation text is taken from New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (NWT) (© Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania) ↩ ↩²

2. JW Library is a registered trademark of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania ↩

3. JW Library may intercept jw.org links by default ↩