I have absolutely no idea what you're doing in your sort. I'm assuming that you want to sort on the following (in order):

1. Book name
2. Chapter
3. Verse

In that case, you don't want to do a split, but, rather, a regex.

map { [ $_, /(?:(\d+)\s+)?(\w)\s+(\d+):(\d+)/ ] }
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Then, in your sort, you now compare in the following:

sort {
    $a->[2] cmp $b->[2] ||
    ( defined $a->[1] && defined $b->[1] && $a->[1] <=> $b->[1]) ||
    $a->[2] <=> $b->[2] ||
    $a->[3] <=> $b->[3]
}
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The reason for both defined checks is that you need to make sure that both sides have a number. You might have '1 Hebrews' vs. 'Hebrews'. You don't want to try and make that comparison. If you wanted, you could fake 'Hebrews' into '0 Hebrews' by improving the sort a bit to say

sort {
    $a->[2] cmp $b->[2] ||
    ($a->[1] || 0) <=> ($b->[1] || 0) ||
    $a->[2] <=> $b->[2] ||
    $a->[3] <=> $b->[3]
}
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Putting it all together, you end up with:

@sorted =
    map  {
        $_-[0]
    }
    sort {
        $a->[2] cmp $b->[2] ||
        ($a->[1] || 0) <=> ($b->[1] || 0) ||
        $a->[2] <=> $b->[2] ||
        $a->[3] <=> $b->[3]
    }
    map {
        [ $_, /(?:(\d+)\s+)?(\w)\s+(\d+):(\d+)/ ]
    } @unsorted;
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(Note - this is untested code. Caveat Emptor!)

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