The prayer Jesus himself taught his disciples — the most-prayed prayer in human history.
The Lord's Prayer arose in two contexts. In Matthew (the longer form), Jesus taught it during the Sermon on the Mount as part of his teaching on righteousness — contrasting his way of prayer with the "empty phrases" (Matthew 6:7) of those who thought God needed to be informed or persuaded. Jesus's prayer is brief, ordered, and assumes God's knowledge and goodness.
In Luke (the shorter form), the disciples specifically asked: "Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples" (Luke 11:1). Jesus responded with the prayer.
For 2,000 years, this prayer has been prayed daily by believers across every tradition — the universal Christian prayer. It is the prayer most universally memorized in Christian history, the prayer used at baptisms, the prayer prayed at the Eucharist, the prayer used to teach children to pray.
The Greek Pater hemon — "Our Father" — is unprecedented in Jewish prayer of the time. To address God this directly, with this kind of intimacy, would have been startling to Jesus's first hearers. The prayer is corporate ("our," not "my") — even alone, the believer prays as part of God's family.
A petition for God's name to be treated as holy. The first three petitions all concern God's glory (name, kingdom, will) — the order of priority Jesus assumes for prayer. We are not to start with our needs but with God's honor.
A prayer for the in-breaking of God's reign — both in the future (his ultimate consummation) and in the present (his rule expressed in lives surrendered to him). "On earth as it is in heaven" assumes that heaven's pattern is the standard.
The first petition for human need. "Daily" (Greek epiousion — a word used only here in all of Greek literature, possibly meaning "sufficient for the day" or "for the coming day") emphasizes day-by-day dependence. Recalls the manna in the wilderness (Exodus 16) — enough for today, not stockpiled for tomorrow.
Jesus binds receiving and granting forgiveness inseparably together. Matthew 6:14-15 makes it explicit: if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you. The link is real — not legalistic but organic. A heart that has truly received forgiveness extends it.
Pope Francis updated the Italian and French translations in 2020 to "do not let us fall into temptation," clarifying the meaning: God does not tempt anyone (James 1:13), but he can preserve his people through temptation. "Deliver us from evil" (or "the evil one" — Greek tou ponerou is ambiguous) is a petition for protection from Satan and the powers of darkness.
A liturgical doxology added by the early church (not in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew 6, but in Christian use by the 1st century — appearing in the Didache around 100 AD). It closes the prayer by returning to where it began: God's sovereignty.
The prayer Jesus taught his disciples (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 11:2-4) — the most universally prayed Christian prayer for 2,000 years.
The doxology ("For thine is the kingdom") is not in the earliest manuscripts. It was added from liturgical use. Protestants include it; Catholics historically did not but now do in the Mass.
Both are biblical. The Greek opheilemata in Matthew 6:12 literally means "debts"; the parallel context uses paraptoma ("trespasses") in v. 14. Different translations chose different terms.
"Hallowed" means "treated as holy." It is a petition: "May your name be honored as holy" — in our hearts, in our communities, in the world.