BIBLE VERSE STUDY
Matthew 6:9-13 — The Lord's Prayer
Jesus gives a model prayer that reorders desire around God's name, kingdom, and will before turning to daily needs, forgiveness, and protection from evil.
Scripture
9After this manner therefore pray ye. Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth.
11Give us this day our daily bread.
12And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
What this passage means
The passage is framed by the command 'After this manner therefore pray ye' (verse 9), which links it to the preceding warning against 'vain repetitions' (verse 7). Jesus does not forbid long prayer, but provides a pattern: the prayer moves from God's concerns to human needs. The first three petitions — 'Hallowed be thy name,' 'Thy kingdom come,' 'Thy will be done' — focus entirely on God, asking that his name be honored, his rule established, and his purposes accomplished on earth.
The second half of the prayer turns to the present: 'Give us this day our daily bread' asks for the necessities of the coming day rather than stored surplus; this contrasts with the later teaching against laying up treasures on earth (verses 19-21). The petition 'forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors' makes human willingness to forgive the measure of divine forgiveness, a point Jesus restates emphatically in verses 14-15.
The closing petition — 'bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one' — acknowledges that the disciples face testing they cannot endure alone. The bracketed doxology ('thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory') is absent from the earliest manuscripts and is not part of the original text of Matthew, though it has a long history of liturgical use.
Context
Matthew 6 sits within the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus contrasts genuine righteousness with performance for human approval. Verses 5-8 instruct private prayer rather than public display, and verses 16-18 give parallel instructions for fasting. The Lord's Prayer is thus offered as a model for secret, sincere communion with the Father.
Luke 11:1-4 records a similar prayer given in response to a disciple's request, while the surrounding context in Matthew (verses 19-34) expands on trusting the Father for daily needs and refusing anxiety about material things.
Key words in the original
- G1967 ἐπιούσιον appears only here in the NT and its exact sense is debated; the lexical gloss treats it as relating to subsistence or what is needful for the day, which fits the prayer's request for present provision rather than surplus.
- G3783 ὀφειλήματα ('debts') is the term Jesus chooses for trespasses in this petition; the entry glosses it as 'something owed' with a figurative sense of 'a due' or 'a fault,' underlining that sin is framed as a moral obligation broken.
- G3986 πειρασμός ('temptation' or 'trial') covers both solicitation and proving, so the petition 'bring us not into temptation' asks for protection from situations that exceed the disciple's ability to stand.
Related verses
- Luke 11:1 Luke records the prayer given in response to a disciple's request 'Lord, teach us to pray,' showing the prayer arose from a felt need rather than a formal outline.
- Luke 11:4 Luke's version of the prayer parallels the petitions on forgiveness and temptation, confirming the two synoptic accounts preserve a common core of Jesus' teaching on prayer.
- Matthew 26:42 In Gethsemane Jesus prays 'thy will be done,' modeling in his own life the very submission to the Father's will that this prayer teaches the disciples to ask for.
Common questions
Is the doxology 'For thine is the kingdom...' part of the original text?
The doxology is absent from the earliest and most reliable manuscripts of Matthew and is generally regarded by textual scholars as a later liturgical addition, though it has a long history of use in Christian worship.
Does 'daily bread' mean literal food only?
The Greek term is widely discussed, but the prayer's setting — teaching dependence on the Father for tomorrow's needs — fits a literal request for the day's necessities, as the immediately following passage on not being anxious about food (verses 25-34) confirms.
Why is forgiving others attached to asking for forgiveness?
Jesus ties the two together in the petition itself ('as we also have forgiven our debtors') and reinforces it in the verses that follow (verses 14-15): the willingness to release others is presented as the human side of receiving the Father's forgiveness.