From the Preface: "... contains 257 selections from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, which span a period of almost four decades, concluding with His passing in 1892, and 241 passages from the Writings of His son and successor, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, including a few selections from His utterances, which illuminate important aspects of Bahá’u’lláh’s life and teachings. Within these pages, readers will find many of the passages with which they are already familiar from institute courses, often set within the context of the books and Tablets from which they are taken. Included as well are a number of newly translated excerpts published for the first time in this volume."

A Microsoft Word version was first prepared by Mike Thomas (2025); an official Word version was later added to bahai.org.

See also a compilation of extracts from this book, "Newly translated portions of Bahai texts, Baha’i Sacred Scriptures," in PDF and Word formats.