On October 9, 2022, Brother Paul Norton, a member of the Britain Branch Committee, released The Bible—The Good News According to Matthew in Punjabi (Shahmukhi) during a live program. Over 1,300 attended, including publishers who tied in to the event from Kingdom Halls throughout the Britain branch territory. The Bible book was available immediately in audio, digital, and printed formats.

Punjabi is spoken by millions of people in India and Pakistan as well as by large populations in other lands. The complete New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures in Punjabi written in Gurmukhi script was released in October 2020. However, this new edition will be used by those who read Punjabi in Shahmukhi script, who generally do not read Gurmukhi script or fully understand the vocabulary. Until now, Punjabi (Shahmukhi) readers have had to rely on Bible translations in other languages, such as Urdu.

Over the years, a number of individual books of the Bible in Punjabi (Shahmukhi) have been produced. However, this translation of the book of Matthew focuses especially on being easy to read and understand. Most importantly, this translation contains Jehovah’s name.

One translator who worked on the project said: “People may have heard Jehovah’s name in church hymns. But because translators have removed the name from the majority of verses in the Bible, people often feel unable to draw close to God. Now they will see God’s name in this Bible book at every occurrence where it rightly belongs.”

We are confident that this release will help our brothers and sisters to continue drawing close to Jehovah and praising his name.—Matthew 6:9.