Greek Scripture • Annotated Edition

The Lord’s Prayer

Κατὰ Ματθαῖον 6:9–13 • Koine Greek

How to use this edition: Hover over any Greek word to see its lemma, transliteration, grammatical parsing, exegetical explanation, and—where relevant—a teaching or sermon-preparation application. On phones and tablets, tap a word; tap it again to close the note. Every word is parsed; significant terms include expanded notes on verb aspect, syntax, textual variants, and interpretive boundaries. These observations distinguish grammatical facts from possible applications.

9 · ·

Our Father in heaven, may your name be held holy.

10 · , ·

May your kingdom come; may your will be done, on earth as in heaven.

11 ·

Give us today the bread we need.

12 , ·

And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive those indebted to us.

13 , .

And do not bring us into testing, but deliver us from evil / the evil one.

Traditional Doxology

. .

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Included in the traditional Byzantine and Textus Receptus texts. See the textual note below.

Textual and Exegetical Notes

How to use the interpretive notes. The parsing identifies form; the exegetical note explains how that form functions in its sentence; the teaching suggestion offers a possible application rather than a meaning mechanically encoded in the Greek. Aorist forms characteristically present an action as a whole, not automatically as a single, completed, or unusually urgent event. Imperatives in prayer are petitions addressed to God, not commands that place God under human authority.

Textual tradition. This webpage presents the traditional Greek wording rather than silently combining manuscript editions. The SBL Greek New Testament (representative of the modern critical tradition) reads ἐπὶ γῆς in v. 10, ἀφήκαμεν in v. 12, and omits the doxology from its main text. The traditional Byzantine form here reads ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ἀφίεμεν, and includes the doxology.

Matthew and Luke. Luke 11:2–4 preserves a shorter form of the prayer. The Greek wording here is from Matthew 6, not a harmonization of the two accounts.

Understanding the translation. The English glosses are brief study aids, not a formal FIT translation. Several expressions, especially ἐπιούσιον and τοῦ πονηροῦ, permit more than one defensible interpretation.

Text comparison: Matthew 6:9–13, SBLGNT and TR1550.

Study and Sermon Outline

1. God’s character and rule (vv. 9–10): Father, holy name, kingdom, and will. The three third-person imperatives put God’s purposes first.

2. A dependent community (vv. 11–12): bread and forgiveness. The repeated first-person plurals invite a corporate reading; the debt metaphor binds reception of mercy to the practice of mercy.

3. Protection and rescue (v. 13): the negative and positive petitions form a pair. Testing and evil are realities to face with God’s help, not opportunities for spiritual self-confidence.

4. The traditional praise: the doxology provides a fitting liturgical conclusion while requiring explicit manuscript qualification.

Sources for further study: NET Bible notes, Matthew 6:9–13 · Greek text and variant comparison · standard lexicons such as BDAG for detailed lexical study.