The Institute of Bible Translation (IBT) has published a new edition Injil in the Lak language, including the Four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, and the book of Revelation.

The Laks (approximately 173,000 in Russia, according to the 2021 census) are one of the indigenous peoples of the central part of Dagestan, where there are about 60 Lak villages. The Lak language belongs to the Nakh-Dagestan language group. The Laks traditionally practice Islam.

The Injil was originally written in Koiné Greek almost 2,000 years ago and has been translated into more than 1,600 languages. Individual books of the Injil  published by IBT in Lak earlier were the Gospel of Mark (1996); the Gospel of Luke (2002, 2012, 2019); the Gospel of Matthew (2016); and Gospel Parables (2019).

Since the first Lak Scripture portion was published in 1996, the knowledge and skills of the translation team and their ability to translate the Biblical text have improved with each new edition. Many key terms have been clarified, the spelling of proper names has been polished, etc. Now all these books have been revised and printed in a single edition.

The Biblical text is accompanied by footnotes with cultural and historical information. Several appendices are included at the end of the book: a glossary with explanations of key terms; a wordlist giving the meaning of various Lak words that are not used frequently in contemporary Lak; the primary textual variants in the Greek manuscripts of these six books; and several maps.

The new edition is available in electronic format on the IBT website, and it will soon be added to the Lak  Injil app on Google Play and AppStore.