The Bible has already been translated into hundreds of languages, but a new – and slightly more unusual – one is being published this week: the emoji Bible.

Marketed as "Scripture for millennials", the Bible has been translated from the KJV using picture emoticons for the first time ever. It launches this week, and will be available for download on iTunes from May 29.

Speaking to The Memo, the author of the book – known only as the sunglasses smiley emoji – said they want their version of Scripture to open up the Bible to new readers.

"What's amazing about emojis, and what's made them so successful, is that they're language-agnostic – they allow you to convey an idea to anyone, regardless of what language they speak," they said.

"A major goal of this whole process was to take a book that I think is very non-approachable to lay readers and try to make it more approachable by removing a lot of its density."

The Bible has been translated in its entirety, but has between 85-90 per cent of the characters of the original.

"The Bible has a lot of old language, there's a lot of nuance involved in translating it – a lot of the time, you need to think beyond 1-to-1 fit," the author said.

"There's a lot of trial and error, and a lot of rereading. But it's all worth the goal of making the Bible a little more approachable, to inject some levity, and to get people to look at it, with no particular agenda beyond that."

The emoji version has also been shared on Twitter, by @BibleEmoji.

To turn your favourite Bible verses into the emoji version, click here.