A new service has been launched recently by Bible Society, which aims to bring "divine inspiration direct to mobile phones".

VirtualBible™ will make the Old and New Testaments from Genesis to Revelation available for download to mobile phone users for the first time. The service will cost around £12.

The product follows hard on the heels of products like Megavoice dubbed the 'God Pod' a solar powered, hand-held computer that plays a digitally recorded reading of the Bible.

"While mobiles are great for up-to-the-minute information urgent messages and football scores - we are offering people an opportunity to use the same technology for reflection," said Michael Pfundner, Bible Society's Development Officer. "Just two minutes' Bible reading, on a crowded train, can be really helpful on a busy day."

For church ministers in a counselling situation, bringing out a leather-bound book can appear scholarly and aloof - "reading a Psalm from a Sony Ericsson is much less threatening," explained Michael Pfundner.

The age of the 'pew Bible' may be over too, as churches will no longer need to provide Bibles for visitors, a Bible Society release has said.

Mobile phone users in more than 130 countries will be able to make use of the service in a choice of translations.

"With the launch of this product the Bible is no longer a dusty book on a shelf - it becomes part of a person's daily life and culture, as natural as their personalised ringtone or mp3s," said Pfundner.

"We expect demand for VirtualBible™ to come mainly, but not exclusively from young people for whom accessing information of all kinds on their mobiles is as normal as making a phone call," said Michael Pfundner. "It fits in with our mission to make the Bible - and its message accessible to a generation that reads screens more than books. The words and truth remain the same."

Mobile users access the site by entering http://wapbibles.com into their phone browser.