The Lord's Prayer in the Bible: where it is, what each line means

The Lord's Prayer is in two places in the Bible: Matthew 6:9-13, in the Sermon on the Mount, and Luke 11:2-4, where a disciple asks Jesus, "Lord, teach us to pray." Matthew's version is the longer one that most churches say aloud. Luke's is shorter and has no closing line about "the kingdom, the power, and the glory."

Below: both passages in full, a side-by-side table of the differences, the story around each, what every line means, why some churches say "debts" and others "trespasses", where the ending came from, and a simple way to pray it slowly every day.

Where is the Lord's Prayer in the Bible?

Jesus gives the prayer twice, in two different settings.

• Matthew 6:9-13. Part of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5 to 7). Jesus is teaching a crowd about giving, praying and fasting in secret, not for show. The prayer comes right after a warning against "vain repetitions."
• Luke 11:2-4. Jesus has just finished praying "in a certain place." One of his disciples asks him to teach them to pray, "just as John also taught his disciples" (Luke 11:1, WEB). The prayer is his answer, followed by a parable about a friend knocking at midnight and the promise "keep asking, and it will be given you."

It is not in Mark or John. Mark has one echo of it: "Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone" (Mark 11:25, WEB).

The Lord's Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13

"Pray like this: 'Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.'" (Matthew 6:9-13, WEB)

Read the verses around it and the prayer makes more sense. Just before, Jesus says: "When you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men" (Matthew 6:5), and "In praying, don't use vain repetitions as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking. Therefore don't be like them, for your Father knows what things you need before you ask him" (Matthew 6:7-8, WEB).

So the prayer is given as the opposite of a show, and the opposite of piling up words. Right after it, Jesus comes back to one line: "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you don't forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matthew 6:14-15, WEB). Of all the requests, forgiveness is the one he stops to underline.

The Lord's Prayer in Luke 11:2-4

"When you pray, say, 'Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'" (Luke 11:2-4, WEB)

Many modern translations, such as the ESV and NIV, print an even shorter Luke: "Father, hallowed be your name..." without "Our," "in heaven," the line about God's will, or "deliver us from the evil one." That is because the oldest Greek manuscripts of Luke are shorter, and those lines appear to have been filled in later from Matthew. The World English Bible quoted here follows a different family of manuscripts, so its Luke is closer to Matthew. Either way, the heart of the prayer is the same.

What follows in Luke is worth reading with it. Jesus tells of a man who knocks on a friend's door at midnight to borrow three loaves, and gets them because he keeps knocking (Luke 11:5-8). Then: "Keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you" (Luke 11:9, WEB), ending with "how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" (Luke 11:13). In Luke, the prayer comes with an invitation to keep coming back.

Matthew and Luke side by side

Why two versions? The Bible doesn't say. A simple and widely held answer is that Jesus taught the prayer more than once, to different listeners, and didn't mean it as a fixed formula word for word. He said "pray like this" as well as "say." It is a pattern as much as a script.

What each line of the Lord's Prayer means

The prayer has an address, three requests about God, and three or four requests about us. The order matters: God first, then our needs.

"Our Father in heaven"

Jesus tells his followers to call God "Father." He prayed that way himself, even in the garden before his arrest: "Abba, Father, all things are possible to you" (Mark 14:36, WEB). Paul says the Holy Spirit gives believers the same cry: "you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" (Romans 8:15, WEB). "Our" means no one prays it alone; even in a closed room you pray as one of a family. "In heaven" keeps the closeness from becoming small: he is near, and he is also over all.

"May your name be kept holy"

This is the older "hallowed be thy name." It's a request, not only praise: let God's name be honored, by me and by everyone. In practice it means starting your prayer with who God is before what you need. One sentence of thanks or praise here changes the tone of everything after.

"Let your Kingdom come"

A prayer for God's rule to be seen in full, in the world and in your own life. Jesus tells the same crowd, "seek first God's Kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33, WEB). Praying this line puts your own plans under his.

"Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"

The hardest line to mean. Jesus prayed it in Gethsemane: "not my will, but yours, be done" (Luke 22:42, WEB). It doesn't mean giving up on asking; Jesus asked first, honestly, for the cup to pass. It means asking, and then handing over the outcome.

"Give us today our daily bread"

The first request for ourselves is ordinary: food for today. It recalls the manna in the wilderness, when God told Israel to "gather a day's portion every day" (Exodus 16:4, WEB). The Greek word translated "daily," epiousios, is very rare; it appears in these two passages and almost nowhere else, so scholars still debate whether it means "for today," "for tomorrow," or "what we need." All three point the same way: ask God for what you need, a day at a time. Proverbs has the same idea: "Give me neither poverty nor riches. Feed me with the food that is needful for me" (Proverbs 30:8, WEB). Bread stands for every real need: rent, health, patience for a hard conversation.

"Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors"

Sin is pictured as a debt we can't pay. Luke says "sins" plainly. The second half ties our forgiveness of others to our asking. Jesus doesn't mean we earn God's forgiveness by forgiving; he means a person who has been forgiven a huge debt can't keep holding a small one over someone else, as his parable of the unforgiving servant shows (Matthew 18:23-35). If a name comes to mind when you pray this line, that's usually the person to forgive, or to start forgiving. Our guide on how to pray for forgiveness walks through confession and making things right.

"Bring us not into temptation"

The older wording is "lead us not into temptation." It doesn't mean God tempts people; James is clear: "God can't be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one" (James 1:13, WEB). The Greek word can mean testing or trial as well as temptation. The request is: keep us out of situations where we would fall, and hold us when testing comes. Jesus told his sleepy disciples the same thing: "Watch and pray, that you don't enter into temptation" (Matthew 26:41, WEB).

"But deliver us from the evil one"

Older English says "from evil," newer translations "from the evil one." The Greek can mean either. Jesus prayed for his disciples in the same words: "I pray not that you would take them from the world, but that you would keep them from the evil one" (John 17:15, WEB). It's a prayer for protection, for yourself and for those you love.

"For yours is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen."

This ending is called the doxology (a short word of praise). It isn't in the oldest Greek manuscripts of Matthew, which is why many Bibles print it in a footnote. But it is very old: a Christian handbook from the late first or early second century, the Didache, gives the prayer with "for yours is the power and the glory forever" and tells believers to pray it three times a day. Its words echo David's prayer: "Yours, LORD, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty! ... Yours is the kingdom, LORD" (1 Chronicles 29:11, WEB). Protestant churches almost all say it, and it's a fitting way to end: the prayer begins and finishes with God.

The traditional and modern wording

Most English speakers learned the prayer from the King James Version (1611), which is public domain:

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 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. (Matthew 6:9-13, KJV)

Many churches use a contemporary wording agreed by English-speaking churches in 1988 (the English Language Liturgical Consultation):

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen.

Debts or trespasses: which is right?

Both, in a sense. Matthew's Greek says "debts," and the King James Version follows it. "Trespasses" comes from William Tyndale's English New Testament (1526) and the Church of England's Book of Common Prayer (1549), which spread that wording. Jesus himself uses "trespasses" in the verses just after the prayer (Matthew 6:14-15). So:

• "Debts" and "debtors": common in Presbyterian, Reformed and some Baptist churches, closest to Matthew's Greek.
• "Trespasses" and "those who trespass against us": common in Methodist, Lutheran, Anglican and Episcopal churches, from the Prayer Book.
• "Sins" and "those who sin against us": the 1988 contemporary wording, closest to Luke.

They all mean the same thing. If you visit a church that says the other one, just follow along.

Did Jesus mean us to repeat it word for word?

He gave it both ways. In Luke he says "When you pray, say" these words; in Matthew, "pray like this," right after warning against empty repetition. Christians have always done both. Praying the exact words connects you with believers in every century; using each line as a heading for your own words keeps it from becoming automatic. What Jesus warned against wasn't repeating words, but repeating them without meaning them, as if more words would make God listen.

If you've said it so often that it slides past without a thought, slow it down. The next section shows how.

How to pray the Lord's Prayer slowly (10 minutes)

Use each line as a doorway. Say the line, then pray in your own words about it before moving on. A timer helps the first few times.

1. "Our Father in heaven" (1 minute). Sit quietly. Thank God that you can call him Father. Remember you pray with others: name someone who might be praying right now too.
2. "May your name be kept holy" (1 minute). Praise God for one thing he is: faithful, patient, kind. Name one thing he has done this week.
3. "Let your Kingdom come" (1 minute). Pray for your church, your town, and one place in the news.
4. "Let your will be done" (2 minutes). Name the decision or worry in front of you. Ask honestly for what you want. Then say, "but your will."
5. "Give us today our daily bread" (2 minutes). Ask for today's needs only: your own, then your family's, then one friend's.
6. "Forgive us... as we forgive" (2 minutes). Confess what comes to mind from yesterday. Name anyone you need to forgive and ask for help to do it.
7. "Bring us not into temptation, deliver us" (30 seconds). Name the place you're most likely to stumble today and ask for protection there.
8. "For yours is the Kingdom" (30 seconds). End with praise, and say the whole prayer once more, all the way through.

This is the same shape behind the ACTS prayer model and our 10-minute guided prayer script: praise first, then confession, thanks and asking. If it helps to be led through it out loud, our free day 1 does that: play day 1 free.

A week with the Lord's Prayer

One way to learn the prayer deeply is to spend a day on each part. Read the verse, pray the line through the day, and come back to it at night.

Teaching the Lord's Prayer to children

• One line a week. Learn a line at bedtime each week; in two months they know it by heart.
• Ask what it means. "What's our daily bread today?" Let them name their own needs.
• Use your hands. Point up for "in heaven," open hands for "give us," hand on heart for "forgive us."
• Pray it together at a set time, like the end of dinner, so it becomes part of the day.

More ideas in our guide on how to pray for your children.

Common questions

What chapter and verse is the Lord's Prayer?

Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. Matthew's is the longer version used in most churches.

Why is "for thine is the kingdom" missing from my Bible?

It isn't in the oldest Greek manuscripts of Matthew, so many modern Bibles put it in a footnote. It was added very early in church use (it's in the Didache), and most Protestant churches still say it.

Why is it called the Lord's Prayer?

Because the Lord Jesus taught it. It's also called the "Our Father," from its first words.

Is the Lord's Prayer in the Old Testament?

No, but many of its phrases echo it: God as Father (Isaiah 63:16), his holy name (Ezekiel 36:23), daily bread (Exodus 16), and the closing praise (1 Chronicles 29:11).

Should I pray the Lord's Prayer every day?

Many Christians do; the Didache told believers to pray it three times a day. It works well as the opening or closing of your own prayer time.

Which version should I memorize?

The one your church says, so you can pray it together. If you don't have one, Matthew 6:9-13 in any translation you read is a good choice.

Pray it once tonight, slowly, line by line. If you'd like help keeping a daily time with God, our daily prayer reads Scripture to you and leads you through ten minutes: play day 1 free, or answer a few questions to build your 40-day prayer plan. More in our prayer guides.

Sources

Scripture: World English Bible (public domain), eBible.org; King James Version (1611, public domain). Contemporary wording: English Language Liturgical Consultation, Praying Together (1988). The Didache, chapter 8. Pages read for this guide: Bible Study Tools, "The Lord's Prayer in the Bible"; Bart Ehrman, "Where is the Lord's Prayer in the Bible?"; Bible Hub, "What's the Lord's Prayer's meaning?".