What Is the Lord's Prayer? Line by Line

The Lord's Prayer is Matthew 6:9-13. The setting is worth noticing: Jesus is not answering "what should I pray for" so much as correcting how people were praying — a few verses earlier he has just said not to pray standing in the street like the hypocrites, and not to use vain repetitions.

Line by line

Our Father which art in heaven — the first words set the whole relationship. Not "sovereign Lord" but "Father". And our, not my.
Hallowed be thy name — the first petition has nothing to do with the one praying.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven — still about God.

Give us this day our daily bread — only here does the first request about yourself appear, and it asks for today only.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors — the two forgivenesses are tied together.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil — protection last.

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.Matthew 6:9 (KJV)

The order is the teaching

Of the six petitions, the first three are about God and only the last three about the person praying. That proportion is not accidental. The model raises the eyes first and gets to needs second — which is the reverse of how most praying actually goes.

Why bread only for today

It does not ask for a month's supply. The line echoes the manna in the wilderness, which could only be gathered a day at a time and spoiled if hoarded. What the prayer trains is a dependence you come back to daily.

The one line he went back to

Having finished, Jesus adds a comment on exactly one petition: "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you" (6:14-15). Out of six, forgiveness is the one he stops and repeats.

Matthew's version and Luke's

Luke 11:2-4 is shorter. The occasions differ — Matthew's sits inside the Sermon on the Mount, Luke's follows a disciple asking "Lord, teach us to pray". That difference tells you it is a model, not an incantation to be said word-perfect. The closing "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory" is absent from the earliest manuscripts; it came in through church use.

Read all of Matthew 6 in the BiblePro app and notice the three passages around it — giving, praying, fasting — which belong together as a set. And do look for a local church to pray alongside.