SkiesPrayer
The Lord’s Prayer
The prayer Jesus taught his disciples, prayed by Christians every day for two thousand years.
So then, this is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
Matthew 6:9–13
The Lord’s Prayer is the prayer Jesus taught when his disciples asked how to pray (Matthew 6:9–13; Luke 11:2–4). It honours God’s name, asks for his kingdom and will, daily bread, forgiveness and protection from evil. Most churches add the closing praise “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.”
The traditional words
Our Father, which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
in earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen.
What each line means
- Our Father in heaven. Jesus invites us to speak to God as he does, as a loved child to a father, and “our” reminds us we never pray alone.
- Hallowed be your name. Before we ask for anything, we ask that God be honoured as holy, in the world and in us.
- Your kingdom come, your will be done. We ask for God’s good rule to fill the earth the way it fills heaven, starting with our own choices today.
- Give us this day our daily bread. We bring our ordinary needs to God, one day at a time, and learn to trust him for tomorrow.
- Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. We ask for mercy, and we let go of what others owe us. The two belong together.
- Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We admit we are weak and ask God to keep us from what would pull us away from him.
- For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory. This closing praise is not in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew, so many Bibles print it as a note. Christians have prayed it since the first centuries.
How to pray it slowly
- Pray the whole prayer once, at an ordinary pace.
- Go back to one line, the one that seems to fit today, and stay there for a minute.
- Put your own words under it: whose bread, which debts, what temptation.
- Finish with the whole prayer again, and amen.
Debts or trespasses?
Matthew writes “debts” and Luke writes “sins.” The word “trespasses” comes from older English prayer books and the verses right after the prayer (Matthew 6:14–15). All three mean the same thing: the wrongs we need forgiven, and the wrongs we choose to forgive.
Scripture behind this prayer
So Jesus told them, “When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us. And lead us not into temptation.’”
Luke 11:2–4
Questions people ask
Where is the Lord’s Prayer in the Bible?
In Matthew 6:9–13, in the Sermon on the Mount, and in a shorter form in Luke 11:2–4, when a disciple asks Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
Why do some versions end differently?
The closing line, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever,” is not in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew. Many Protestant churches pray it; Catholics usually pray it separately after the Our Father at Mass.
Is the Our Father the same as the Lord’s Prayer?
Yes. Catholics usually call it the Our Father; many Protestants call it the Lord’s Prayer. It is the same prayer.
