How grateful we are for the wonderful men and women through the centuries that have carefully guarded these precious words of God, the scriptures. How can we thank them enough? We pray always that the members of the Church will prayerfully open the words of the prophets, open the words of the Savior. To read the Savior's own words, think about Him on giving the Beatitudes, or as He spoke as He prepared to offer Himself in His sacred Atonement, or to think of His words to the Nephites as He appeared to them and said, "I am Jesus Christ." These are words filled with power, filled with spirit. And they bring into us a deep conversion that all these things are true--that He is the Son of God, the Savior of the world. And nothing is more important than that.

We all remember, who are of age, how excited we were in 1979, and then additionally in 1981, when the new scriptures were brought into our hands with footnotes and cross-references. It was a magnificent time. And now, with technology and computers and with another 30 years of history, we're just able to do a little better and have those work in concert, one with another. To some extent, it's adding a comma or a semicolon or tying one verse to another. But it's just a refinement of our 1979 and 1981 edition. We want to emphasize there is no need to buy new scriptures. In fact, of course, everything is online. And we expect that these details--as you need new scriptures, you can get new scriptures. But all the pages are exactly the same page numbers as you have already had. So someone with this new edition or with an older edition, if you turn to page 450, you're going to see the same verses there.

The decision to have a new edition was decided back in 2004. Now, that's a long time ago to many of us. And so in a very careful, methodical way, people looked at all the footnotes, all the study aids. And any changes that were recommended were brought forward to the General Authorities ... and finally to the First Presidency and the Twelve, who all felt unified and complete on what was determined. We did not decide this hastily, nor was it decided in a corner, as it's said. It was decided with all of us together. And it's a wonderful new edition of the scriptures.

Our Joseph Smith Papers project has been working many, many years. And this is the first time we've had the ability and luxury to be able to really focus on the history of the Church, particularly of the revelations. And we found things that have added to the context, helped us better understand those revelations. Again, also, some corrections needed to be made in the historical record, in the headings of the Doctrine and Covenants.

I would call it the sacred text. The words of the prophets, the words of the Lord are in the chapters and verses of our scriptures. But in the Book of Mormon, in the Doctrine and Covenants, in the standard works of the Church, we have headings at the beginning of each chapter--or section, in the case of the Doctrine and Covenants--which give us some context and understanding about that which we are about to read. I might add that there are a couple of things that are new. For example, with all the new members of the Church, we determined to put a brief introduction into the two declarations that are at the end of the Doctrine and Covenants. There are actually a few small places where there's actually a textual change in the scriptures. For example, in one of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, we learned that James Covel, who is mentioned in the scriptures, that his name was actually spelled in a different way. So that was-- And we'd thought he was a Baptist minister when in fact he was a Methodist minister.

As anyone who has gone to LDS.org knows, this edition of the English scriptures is now online. You can look at everything; enjoy it. It will be very, very, very much like what you currently have. But you will enjoy it. The printed edition--which is being printed currently, but it takes a long time, and there's a lot of pages in putting it together--will be available to us in early August. And not all the sizes, and maybe not all the configurations, but the printed edition will be ready in early August. But they are available now online. And we encourage you to use them with the scriptures you now have in your hands. And enjoy the feasting, as Nephi said, upon the words of Christ.

Well, in my view, the great change, I think, in recent years has been to be able to study the scriptures electronically and be able to use the search tools available with the electronic versions of the scriptures that are available now. It just really enriches the experience, in my view, of being able to focus on topics, or gospel subjects, and really find everywhere in the scriptures where that topic or subject is addressed--is a remarkable thing. The footnotes--everything about the electronic version, I think, is to me a great assistance, particularly to the rising generation, who rely more on that media than maybe some of us older folks.

Can you imagine anything more important than the scriptures? We who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ--we can't imagine not having His words and the words of prophets. And we have so much of it. I remember Elder Robert D. Hales said one time, he said, "When we want to speak to God, we pray. And when we want to hear God's voice to us, we read the scriptures."