Updating for v3 of ESV API?

I just ran into the same issue. I poked around in the new API and came up with the following quick hack. You’ll need to get an API key from https://api.esv.org, then replace the mbbt_add_esv_text function with the code below.

//Returns ESV text
function mbbt_add_esv_text ($reference, $heading) {
		$esv_url = 'https://api.esv.org/v3/passage/html/?q='.urlencode($reference).'&include-headings=false&include-footnotes=false';
    if ($heading === FALSE || strtolower($heading) == 'span')
        $esv_url .= '&include-passage-references=false&include_audio_link=false&include-first-verse-numbers=false';

		$esv_args = array(
			'headers' => array (
				'Authorization' => 'Token XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX'
			)
		);

    $response = json_decode(wp_remote_retrieve_body(wp_remote_get($esv_url, $esv_args)));
		return $response->passages[0];
}

Thanks Rob. Were they pretty quick at approving the API app? I made your changes and nothing is showing up, but I am assuming that is because they haven’t approved it yet.

I was approved right away, but I work for a church as well. If your app is a commercial app, they may review it manually.

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your “quick hack”. I uncovered the same issue as you, realized I needed a v3 API key and how to properly format the Request URL; but, I was going crazy trying to figure out how to pass the API key. Your example, was EXACTLY what I needed. As a return gift to you, if you have not already done so, your “quick hack” inadvertently “breaks” the ability to pass multiple (or non-contiguous) passages in the search request (e.g., Romans 8:28,31 will only return Romans 8:28, and Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8 will only return Matthew 28:18-20 – in these two instances, the non-contiguous passages, Romans 31 and Acts 1:8, although returned by the Request URL, are ignored by the plugin function because you are only returning the first passage returned: $response->passages[0]).

The following modification to your “quick hack” resolves this issue and restores full functionality to the routine. Also, I added more options settings based on the API documentation. You may wish to modify those as you see fit. One note: ESV’s options has a bug where the “attach-audio-link-to” option, which can be set to either “passage” or “heading”, according to the documentation, seems to only recognize “passage” and yet it places the link next to the heading (go figure). I do not have time to chase that rabit any longer. Just thought I would pass it along.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! May God richly bless you exceedingly beyond your ability to measure.

Bro. Chris
Saved by Grace Ministries
https://SavedByGrace.net

//Returns ESV text
function mbbt_add_esv_text ($reference, $heading) {
		$esv_url = 'https://api.esv.org/v3/passage/html/?q='.urlencode($reference).'&inline-styles=true&include-passage-references=true&include-chapter-numbers=true&include-first-verse-numbers=true&include-verse-numbers=true&include-footnotes=false&include-audio-link=true&attach-audio-link-to=passage&include-short-copyright=false';
    if ($heading === FALSE || strtolower($heading) == 'span')
        $esv_url .= '&include-passage-references=false&include_audio_link=false&include-first-verse-numbers=false';

		$esv_args = array(
			'headers' => array (
				'Authorization' => 'Token XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX'
			)
		);

    $response = json_decode(wp_remote_retrieve_body(wp_remote_get($esv_url, $esv_args)));
	$output = '';
	$passages = array();
	$passages = $response->passages;
	foreach ($passages as $passage) {
		$output .= $passage;
	}
		return $output;
}

Hi,

I updated to the V3 API and it’s been working fine for the past few months. However, this week I tried to access a scripture and in the returned response all of the fields except query were empty. Here is the JSON returned for phi 2:4-5:
{“query”:”‘phil 2:4-5′”,”canonical”:””,”parsed”:[],”passage_meta”:[],”passages”:[]}

When I request this from the API V3 page “demo”, the correct information is returned. This seems really odd to me because I am getting a response and a status code of 200. So it is getting my request, it understands what I’m looking for, and it is successfully returning a response, but it isn’t returning the content.

Any idea what’s happening?

Thanks.

Gary

Okay, I found out it was a coding error, two actually, but I had single quotes around the query parm, which I think is why it wasn’t working. Glad I added the URL to the debug output before I tried to ask Crossway about it!

Thanks.

Gary