What Is the Lord's Prayer? Line by Line
Our Father which art in heaven — the prayer Jesus taught, and what each petition asks.
The Lord’s Prayer is the model prayer Jesus gave when asked how to pray (Matthew 6:9–13): “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name…” — six petitions moving from God’s glory (name, kingdom, will) to our needs (daily bread, forgiveness, deliverance). It is a pattern to pray and to pray from: “After this manner therefore pray ye.”
The first half: God first
The prayer’s opening word settles our standing — Father — and its first three requests are all his: hallowed be thy name (may you be honoured as holy), thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as in heaven. Half the prayer passes before we ask for anything, retraining desire itself: prayer’s first work is wanting the right things in the right order.
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him.
The Father-heart the prayer’s first word assumes.
The second half: our needs
Then the daily trinity of human need: bread — provision, asked one day at a time like manna; forgiveness — “our debts,” with the sobering clause “as we forgive our debtors”; and keeping — lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil. Body, conscience, and soul, each entrusted daily. The plural pronouns throughout (“our,” “us”) make it a family prayer even when prayed alone.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
Pattern more than script
Jesus prefaced it “after this manner pray ye” — a skeleton for prayers of any length, not a formula to recite unthinkingly (he had just warned against vain repetitions). Luke’s shorter version confirms the point: the shape is the gift. Countless believers pray it slowly, expanding each petition with the day’s particulars — the training wheels that turn out to be the bicycle.
And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Quick answers
- Where is the Lord's Prayer in the Bible?
- Matthew 6:9–13, within the Sermon on the Mount, and in shorter form Luke 11:2–4, given when a disciple asked “Lord, teach us to pray.”
- Why do some versions end “for thine is the kingdom…”?
- The doxology appears in Matthew 6:13 as the KJV translates it, following many manuscripts; some ancient copies lack it. Either way it echoes 1 Chronicles 29:11 and makes a fitting crown.
- Is it wrong to recite it word for word?
- Not at all — Jesus gave it to be prayed. The warning (Matthew 6:7) is against mindless repetition, not repetition itself: prayed slowly and meant, it is bottomless.
