A web key is required to use the ESV plugin. The default key of IP will work for most users, but if you get an error that you have exceeded the limit for daily passage retrievals, you may want to apply for a personal ESV Web Key. You can get one at the ESV Bible Web Service. If you have a personal key, enter it in the ESV Web Key input field.

The passage retrieval options change the way passages are retrieved from the ESV Web Service. You can mouse over the option name for a brief description of that option or get more information at the ESV Web Service API page. Changing these options will not affect passages that have already been retrieved and stored in the database. If you want all of your ESV references to reflect the changes you will need to clear all stored passages in the manage database/settings section below.

While you can specifically inform the plugin about Bible references in your post using the [esvbible] tag, it also has the ability to automatically find and format any Scripture references in your post. With the Format option you tell the plugin what you want it to do with any Scripture references it finds. Below are examples of the different options.

Examples:

Tooltip

John 3:16

Inline

John 3:16

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (ESV)

Block

John 3:16

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (ESV)

Link

John 3:16

Ignore

John 3:16

There are two ways the plugin can handle Bible references:

1. Dynamic: Find and format Bible passages when visitors come to your site The plugin will not change the post in the database. It will scan your posts when they are viewed by a visitor and will search for Bible references or the [esvbible] tag. This would be a little slower Static but it does not change how your post is stored in the database so if you later change your mind about the plugin default behavior you will not have to go back and edit all of your posts.
2. Static: Find and format Bible passages when saving the post The plugin will modify posts in the database. It will scan posts as you save them and will modify all Scripture references that it finds, turning them into links that are easier for the plugin to recognize. When visitors load your site the plugin will only look for the modified references which will then be converted to the Bible text/tooltip/passage depending on your settings.

Static is a little faster than dynamic, but dynamic provides the most flexibility.

Prior to version 3 of the ESV Plugin, various tags were used to tell the plugin how to display Bible passages ([bible], [biblelink], [bibleblock], [bibleignore]. These tags are not used by default in version 3, but if you are upgrading from an older version and you used those tags you may want to turn on backward compatibility by checking the box below. This will slow the plugin down a little since it will have to search the post for each tag, but this may be preferred if you used the old tags extensively.

If you clear stored passages it will remove all of the ESV passages that have been cached by the plugin. You might want to do this from time to time to keep the ESV database table from growing too large. Also, if you ever change the Passage Retrieval Options you might want to clear stored passages so that it will retrieve previously cached passages using the new settings.

If you decide to clear all, this will remove the ESV database table (will not effect any of your WordPress data) and will remove all ESV Plugin settings from the system. You might want to do this if you want to make a fresh start with plugin settings, or if you want to remove the plugin from the system.