The Lord's Prayer, line by line — slowly enough to mean it.
Sixty words that take twenty seconds to say and a lifetime to pray. Walk through each petition with what it's actually asking — or press play and let it pace you through the whole thing.
Pray it one petition at a time
Eight sections. Use the chips to jump to what you need, walk it in order, or press 'pray it through' and go hands-free.
Jump to what you need
The address
Our Father which art in heaven
“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.”
Matthew 6:9 (KJV)
Two words do most of the work here, and they pull in opposite directions on purpose. "Father" is family language — nearness, belonging, the right to walk in without an appointment. "In heaven" is the corrective that stops it becoming sentimental: this is not a peer, and not a version of your own father with the flaws removed.
And it opens in the plural. Not my Father — our. Jesus gives his followers a prayer that is grammatically impossible to pray as an isolated individual, which is worth noticing before the first petition has even started.
Try this: Say the first line slowly and stop. Notice which half you find easier to believe today — the nearness or the majesty — and sit with the one you don't.
“Pray it through” moves you on every 30 seconds, hands-free — about 4 minutes for the whole thing. Pause any time you want to stay somewhere longer.
Start here
Asked how to pray, Jesus handed over a form
It's worth sitting with how strange that is. The disciples ask to be taught to pray — an invitation to say something about intimacy, or sincerity, or the posture of the heart — and what they get is a text of about sixty words with a clear structure. Address, then four petitions about God, then three about themselves, in that order.
That has consequences for anyone who's been told spontaneous prayer is the real thing and written prayer is a lesser substitute. The most-prayed words in human history are a form, given by Jesus, in answer to a question about method. He does immediately warn against vain repetition — but the warning is about emptiness, not about structure, and he attaches a structure to it in the very next breath.
The other striking feature is the proportion. Four petitions concern God's name, kingdom and will before a single word about bread. Most of us arrive at prayer with a request and stay there. This form makes you spend the opening establishing who you're speaking to, and the effect on what you then ask for is not small.
What this page does
Built to be prayed, not just read
A guided four-minute mode
Press 'pray it through' and the walkthrough advances every thirty seconds, hands-free, pacing you across all eight sections. Pause any time you want to stay somewhere longer.
Something to do at each line
Every petition ends with one concrete thing — name the person you need to forgive, ask for exactly today's provision, say the hard line over the thing you're gripping. The prayer becomes yours at those points.
The honest notes
Including why 'for thine is the kingdom' isn't in the earliest manuscripts, what the disputed word behind 'daily' actually means, and why the whole prayer is in the plural from the first word.
Two questions people ask quietly
Debts, trespasses, and the ending nobody agrees on
Why do some churches say debts and others trespasses? Matthew's Greek says debts — an accounting term, opheilēma, which is the more startling image: sin as an amount owed. Luke's parallel version uses the word for sins in the first half and debtors in the second. 'Trespasses' entered English through Tyndale and stuck in the Anglican tradition. All three are defensible translations of a metaphor that was always financial at its root.
And the closing line — for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory — genuinely isn't in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew, which is why many modern Bibles footnote it or drop it. That sounds like a problem and isn't much of one. It's an ancient liturgical ending, in use by the early second century, drawn almost word for word from David's prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:11. It's the church's own instinct, showing up in the text: having asked for bread, forgiveness and rescue, they would not end on their own need.
Neither question changes anything about praying it. The one thing worth guarding is the warning Jesus attached immediately before — that prayer can become performance, and that the way to avoid this is a closed door and no audience. A form prayed sixty times without meaning a word is exactly what he was warning about. A form prayed slowly, with one honest sentence dropped into each petition, is what he gave.
Now pray the petition you rushed.
Whichever line you moved past quickest, say it properly and in your own words. It stays private; create an account to keep going.
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Questions people ask
About the lord's prayer guide
What is the Lord's Prayer?+
The prayer Jesus gave his disciples when they asked him to teach them to pray, recorded in Matthew 6:9–13 and in a shorter form in Luke 11:2–4. It runs to about sixty words: an address, four petitions concerning God's name, kingdom and will, and three concerning bread, forgiveness and protection.
What does each line of the Lord's Prayer mean?+
Walk through it above — each petition gets its own section with what it's actually asking, why it sits where it does, and one thing to do with it. In short: the first half reorients you toward God, and the second half brings your genuine needs to him in a strikingly modest order, starting with bread for today.
Is it 'debts' or 'trespasses'?+
Matthew's Greek says debts — opheilēma, an accounting word — which makes sin something owed. Luke uses 'sins' in the first clause and 'debtors' in the second. 'Trespasses' came into English through Tyndale and stayed in the Anglican tradition. All three render the same underlying financial metaphor, and nothing theological turns on the choice.
Why do some versions leave out 'for thine is the kingdom'?+
Because it isn't in the earliest manuscripts of Matthew. It's an ancient liturgical ending — attested by the early second century and drawn from 1 Chronicles 29:11 — added by the church rather than recorded from Jesus. Many modern Bibles footnote it for that reason. It remains entirely appropriate to pray.
How long should it take to pray the Lord's Prayer?+
About twenty seconds at speaking pace, which is precisely why most people never get anything from it. Praying it properly — stopping at each petition and putting one real sentence inside it — takes four to five minutes. The guided mode above paces exactly that.
Can I pray the Lord's Prayer as a new Christian?+
Yes, and it's arguably the best possible starting point. It requires no vocabulary you don't have, it teaches the shape of prayer while you use it, and Jesus gave it in answer to the exact question you're asking. Start by praying it slowly once a day for a week.
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