Mobile phone users in South Africa can now download the entire Bible to their phones.

The text is available for download via SMS, in either English or Afrikaans, to certain types of mobile phone.

The 'Virtual Bible' service has been made available by the South African arm of the International Bible Society, a non-denominational organisation, Reuters reported.

It comes with the complete Old and New Testaments as well as a search engine.

The service, which costs ZAR40, can be accessed by users who have a Java-enabled phone with Internet access and 1.2 MB of memory.