Jesus gave His friends a short prayer to show them what to want. Here it is line by line, with the parts people argue about left in.
If you are asking what is the Lord's Prayer, here is the plain answer. It is the prayer Jesus taught His disciples in Matthew 6:9 to 13 and Luke 11:2 to 4, a pattern for talking to God as Father.
It opens with three requests about God, His name, His kingdom and His will, then turns to three about us: bread, forgiveness and rescue. Jesus gave it as a shape for prayer, not a formula that only works when recited exactly.
Praying the words themselves is good. Christians have done it every day since the first century. The point is that the words train what you want, until your own prayers start to sound like His.
In Matthew it sits in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, right after Jesus warns against praying for show and against piling up words. “Do not keep on babbling like pagans,” He says, “for they think they will be heard because of their many words” (Matthew 6:7). Then the reason: “your Father knows what you need before you ask him” (6:8). The prayer that follows is short on purpose.
“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’”
Luke 11:1In Luke the disciples ask. They had watched Him pray, and they wanted what He had.
The longer form, inside a sermon. This is the version most churches pray.
The shorter form, given on request. It opens with just “Father” and ends at “lead us not into temptation.” Later copies of Luke filled it out to match Matthew.
Our Father, give us, forgive us, lead us. Even prayed alone in the car on the Northern State, it is a family prayer.
The Didache, an early Christian manual usually dated to the late first or early second century, gives the prayer and adds, “Pray this three times each day.”
Two wordings, both from Jesus. The power was never in the exact syllables. It is in the Father they are spoken to.
Here it is as Matthew gives it.
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today 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 to 13Jesus prayed to God as Abba, the Aramaic family word for father, and Mark leaves it untranslated in Gethsemane (Mark 14:36). You may have heard that Abba means Daddy. That overstates it, since grown children used it too. It is warm and respectful, the word of someone who belongs in the house. More in what Abba Father means.
Hallowed means treated as holy. It asks that God be honored for who He really is, starting with the one praying. Since Jesus fully reveals the Father, His name is hallowed when people see God looking like Jesus.
The line taught backwards more than any other. More below.
Food for today, asked for today.
Sin as a debt, forgiveness as cancellation.
God does not tempt anyone, so it has to mean something else.
Notice the order. God's name, God's kingdom and God's will come first, then our needs. Once you are clear on who you are talking to, your needs sit in the right place. See also why we pray.
Many of us were taught that the kingdom is not here yet, and that “your kingdom come” asks God to hurry it along. People hold that sincerely, and it takes seriously something true: the world is plainly not the way God wants it. But it does not fit what Jesus said about His own timing.
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.”
Mark 9:1Jesus told the people in front of Him they would see the kingdom arrive in power. They did. The kingdom was inaugurated in Him, poured out at Pentecost, and fully established when the old covenant age ended with the fall of the temple in AD 70. We walk through that in what the kingdom of God is.
“Your kingdom come” means please send it someday. Until then, hold on.
The King is reigning now. We pray His rule into the places that have not welcomed it yet: a marriage, a mind, a street, a city.
At Sound of Heaven we believe the kingdom of God is present, active and established. We are not waiting for it to show up. When we pray “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we are asking for its spread and its fullness in our lives, homes and neighborhoods, not for a future arrival. Like yeast worked through dough (Matthew 13:33), it is already in and still spreading. There is more on what maranatha means if you want to keep going.
We also refuse the opposite error. A present kingdom does not mean everything around you already looks the way God wants it. The prayer assumes there are still places where His will is not being done, and it sends us into them. Our longer look at this line is in thy will be done.
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Manage My Giving"Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."2 Corinthians 9:7
Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3, and almost nowhere else in surviving Greek. Origen, in the third century, thought the Gospel writers may have coined it.
Bread for today, bread needed to live, or bread for the coming day. Serious scholars defend each one, and the word alone does not settle it.
Jerome's Latin translation rendered it “supersubstantial” in Matthew and “daily” in Luke, which shows how far back the uncertainty goes.
The request is modest and immediate. Enough for now, from your Father's hand.
Every option lands in the same place. Israel gathered manna one day at a time, and the prayer keeps that rhythm. It is trust renewed each morning, which is why praying without ceasing is an ordinary daily habit rather than a heroic feat.
Matthew says “forgive us our debts,” things owed. Luke says “sins.” The familiar “trespasses” comes from older English worship and echoes Matthew 6:14 to 15, where Jesus uses a different word for a false step. All three describe one reality: a wrong done, a debt owed, a line crossed.
Jesus finishes the prayer and goes straight back to this one line: “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14). This is not a transaction where you earn mercy by forgiving first. The parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18 shows the order. The king cancels an unpayable debt, and the servant's refusal to release a small one shows he never let the mercy in. Forgiveness received and given are one river. Dam one end and it stops flowing. More in what forgiveness is.
Forgiving does not mean pretending it did not happen or walking back into harm. Forgiveness releases the debt to God. It does not hand the person your trust or your front door key. Your safety comes first.
If you cannot pray this line honestly yet, pray the true version: Father, I want to want to forgive. That is a real prayer, and He hears it. If you would like someone to pray with you, we would be glad to.
Does God lead people into temptation? No. James says it flatly: “God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone” (James 1:13). The Father Jesus shows us does not set traps for His children.
The Greek word is peirasmos, which covers both testing and temptation, and some translations render it “the time of trial.” For the first disciples that was concrete. On the night He was arrested Jesus told them, “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation” (Matthew 26:41), the same word, and the trial came within hours. The risen Jesus promised the church in Philadelphia to keep them “from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world” (Revelation 3:10).
That generation faced real persecution and upheaval, climaxing in the war with Rome and the fall of Jerusalem. Jesus taught them to pray to be carried through it, as we cover in the Olivet Discourse. It was not a prophecy about your future.
The pattern still holds for us. Do not bring us into a test that breaks us, and when pressure comes, keep us. It assumes we are not as strong as we think.
“Deliver us from the evil one” can also be read “from evil.” The Greek allows either. Scripture names the adversary Satan, the accuser, and at Sound of Heaven we understand that as a real force of accusation, deception and opposition, not a creature stalking you. It lies about God, about you, about whether you are forgiven, and deliverance is truth breaking those lies. Forgiven people are hard to accuse. See who Satan is.
What does the Greek word peirasmos cover?
Peirasmos is the ordinary word for a test or trial, which can include temptation. Jesus used it in Gethsemane when the disciples were hours away from the hardest night of their lives.
If you grew up saying the prayer in church, you probably closed with “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” Then a modern Bible put it in a footnote. Nobody was tampering with Scripture.
The oldest manuscripts of Matthew, including Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, end at “deliver us from the evil one.” Later manuscripts carry the ending, and the King James Version followed them. An early form shows up in the Didache, which closes the prayer with “for Thine is the power and the glory for ever,” with no mention of the kingdom. The fuller wording grew in worship, and it borrows its language from David's prayer.
“Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all.”
1 Chronicles 29:11Some who defend the longer text argue the ending is original to Matthew. We think the manuscript evidence points the other way, and most modern translations agree. That takes nothing away from saying it. It is true and drawn straight from Scripture. A later addition is not a false one.
The Lord's Prayer is Jesus letting us listen in on how He talks to His Father, and then inviting us to talk the same way. Every line is something He lived. He hallowed the name, brought the kingdom, chose the Father's will in Gethsemane and forgave from the cross.
You are not reciting a spell. You are praying with Jesus. To use it as a pattern this week, try this.
Say Father and mean it. Thank Him for one specific thing.
Name it: your job, your street, a friend's hospital room. Ask for His kingdom and His will there, today.
Rent, strength, wisdom for one hard conversation. Small requests are welcome.
Receive forgiveness, release someone by name, then name the pressure you are under and the lie you keep hearing.
For related reading, see why prayer is important, the types of prayer and the bread Jesus gives. And if you want to pray this with a church family on Long Island, plan a visit.
The Lord's Prayer is the pattern Jesus gave His family: call God Father, ask for His name, kingdom and will to fill the place you stand, and trust Him for today's bread, forgiveness and rescue.
Tell us what you are carrying. Someone at Sound of Heaven will pray with you and write back.
It is the prayer Jesus taught His disciples, recorded in Matthew 6:9 to 13 and Luke 11:2 to 4. It addresses God as Father, asks for His name to be honored and His kingdom and will to fill the earth, then asks for daily bread, forgiveness and rescue from the evil one. Jesus gave it as a pattern rather than a formula, which is why the two Gospels word it differently. Christians have prayed the words themselves since the first century.
Matthew places it in the Sermon on the Mount, while Luke has Jesus give it when a disciple asks Him to teach them to pray. Luke's version is shorter. It opens with just Father and ends at lead us not into temptation. Jesus may have taught it more than once. Either way, the power was never in exact wording, but in the Father it is spoken to.
Not in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew. Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus end the prayer at deliver us from the evil one, and most modern translations follow them. The Didache, an early Christian manual, closes the prayer with for Thine is the power and the glory for ever, and later manuscripts expanded it. It echoes 1 Chronicles 29:11 and is true, so there is nothing wrong with praying it.
No. James 1:13 says God cannot be tempted by evil and does not tempt anyone. The Greek word in the prayer, peirasmos, covers testing and trial as well as temptation. For the first disciples it pointed to a real time of trial on their generation. For us it asks: do not bring us into a test that breaks us, and rescue us from the accuser's lies.
You can, and it is a good daily prayer. The Didache told early believers to pray it three times each day. But Jesus gave it right after warning against piling up words as if God needs them, so it is not a spell that works only when recited perfectly. Many pray the words slowly, then use each line as a prompt for their own prayers.