Emoji Bible interprets all 66 books of the King James Version with Unicode-approved emoji and commonly used Internet slang and contractions. — Twitter.com/BibleEmoji

LONDON, May 30 — As religious affiliation among millennials continues to decline, the Emoji Bible, which hopes to reverse the tide, hit the iTunes store yesterday.

Totalling just under 3,300 pages, the book — subtitled “Scripture 4 Millennials” — costs US$2.99 (RM12.30).

It interprets all 66 books of the King James Version with Unicode-approved emoji and commonly used Internet slang and contractions.

John 3 16



4 �� so �� the ��, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, b…https://t.co/VfufOAi0OM — Bible Emoji (@BibleEmoji) May 27, 2016

The translator told Guardian Australia that he or she preferred to remain anonymous, identifying only as the “cool-dude-with-sunglasses” emoji in an interview.

“I thought if we fast-forwarded 100 years in the future, an emoji bible would exist,” the translator was quoted as saying. “So I thought it’d be fun to try to make it. ...

“I wanted to make it similar to how you might text or tweet a bible verse, by shrinking the total character count.”

1:17 & jesus �� unto them, come ye after me, & i will make u

2 become ��ers of men. — Bible Emoji (@BibleEmoji) May 28, 2016

The Guardian added that the project used a program of the translator’s own creation that linked 80 emoji with 200 corresponding words, and took about six months.

Android users will have to wait, however, as the book formats used by each platform presented problems: “Like Amazon, for instance, doesn’t support emoji.”