The Lord’s Prayer (KJV) — Matthew 6:9-13
The full King James text of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, ready to read or print, followed by a line-by-line explanation of each petition.
Matthew 6:9-13, King James Version
9After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
10Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
11Give us this day our daily bread.
12And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
King James Version — public domain. biblegarden.net/lords-prayer
The Lord’s Prayer, Line by Line
The prayer moves in one direction: God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will come first, and only then bread, forgiveness, and deliverance.
Our Father which art in heaven
Jesus opens not with a title of power but with kinship. The prayer is addressed to a Father — one who, two verses earlier, already “knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him” (Matthew 6:8). “Our” makes it a prayer the disciple prays alongside others, never alone.
Hallowed be thy name
To hallow is to treat as holy. Before a single request for himself, the one praying asks that God's name be honoured as what it is. Everything that follows depends on this ordering.
Thy kingdom come
A request for God's reign to arrive in full. It is the same priority Jesus states plainly later in the sermon: “seek ye first the kingdom of God” (Matthew 6:33).
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven
Heaven supplies the measure: obedience there is complete, and the prayer asks for the same on earth. Jesus prays these very words for himself in Gethsemane — “thy will be done” (Matthew 26:42).
Give us this day our daily bread
The first request for the one praying, and it is modest: today's provision, not a storehouse. The pattern is Israel gathering manna each morning with none left over (Exodus 16).
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors
Forgiveness received and forgiveness extended are bound together by that “as.” Jesus refuses to let the point pass: the two verses immediately after the prayer (Matthew 6:14-15) return to it and press it further.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil
A plea to be kept away from the testing rather than merely rescued within it. James 1:13 is clear that God tempts no one; the prayer asks God to lead by a road that spares us the trial, and to deliver us when evil is met.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen
The prayer closes where it began — with God rather than with us. Its wording echoes David's prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:11: “Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory.”
Why Jesus Gave This Prayer
The prayer arrives in the Sermon on the Mount as a correction. Jesus has just described two ways of praying badly — praying to be seen, and praying at length as though God were worn down by volume — and the prayer he gives in answer is short enough to say in twenty seconds. “After this manner therefore pray ye,” he begins: not words to repeat mechanically, but a shape for prayer to take.
The Shorter Version in Luke 11
Luke records the prayer a second time, given after a disciple asks, “Lord, teach us to pray.” It is briefer, and the wording shifts: bread is asked for “day by day” instead of “this day,” the debts of Matthew become “sins,” the third petition reverses to “as in heaven, so in earth,” and the prayer ends at “deliver us from evil” without the doxology.
2And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.
3Give us day by day our daily bread.
4And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
Related Verses on Prayer
Five passages that sit closest to the prayer — what surrounds it, and what the rest of the New Testament makes of it.
The instruction that comes just before the prayer: pray in private, to a Father who sees in secret.
Matthew 6:6Jesus returns to the fifth petition the moment the prayer ends, and makes forgiveness the condition he will not soften.
Matthew 6:14For the times the words will not come — the Spirit intercedes where we do not know what to ask.
Romans 8:26Paul's summary of the praying life: everything brought to God, with thanksgiving, instead of carried as anxiety.
Philippians 4:6Three words that set the frequency: prayer is not an event but a habit.
1 Thessalonians 5:17Recommended reading
Study Bibles & devotionals
Go deeper than a single verse. These study Bibles and daily devotionals pair well with the topics here — adding context, commentary, and a rhythm for daily reading.
ESV Study Bible
Crossway
Over 20,000 study notes, maps, and articles — the go-to one-volume study Bible for understanding scripture in context.
Life Application Study Bible (NIV)
Tyndale / Zondervan
Notes that connect each passage to everyday life — ideal alongside the topical verses on this page.
Jesus Calling
Sarah Young
A year of short daily devotions written as if Jesus is speaking — a gentle companion to daily scripture reading.
My Utmost for His Highest
Oswald Chambers
The classic daily devotional — 365 readings that have shaped Christian devotion for over a century.
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Keep Exploring
Read the prayer in its setting in the Gospel of Matthew, gather more scripture on the subject in our Bible verses about prayer collection, or browse every subject in the Topics index.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Lord's Prayer in KJV?
In the King James Version the Lord's Prayer reads: “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” It is found in Matthew 6:9-13, where Jesus gives it to his disciples as the pattern for prayer during the Sermon on the Mount.
Does the KJV say “Our Father who art in heaven” or “which art in heaven”?
The King James Version reads “Our Father which art in heaven.” In the Early Modern English of 1611, “which” was used of people as freely as “who” is today, so the wording carries no suggestion that God is a thing rather than a person. The familiar recited form, “Our Father who art in heaven,” comes from later prayer-book and liturgical versions of the prayer, not from the KJV text of Matthew 6:9.
Where is the Lord's Prayer in the Bible?
The full form is in Matthew 6:9-13, within the Sermon on the Mount. A shorter version appears in Luke 11:2-4, given when a disciple asks, “Lord, teach us to pray.” In the KJV, Luke's version asks for bread “day by day” rather than “this day,” says “forgive us our sins” where Matthew says “forgive us our debts,” reverses the order of the third petition to “as in heaven, so in earth,” and ends at “deliver us from evil” with no closing doxology.
Why does the Lord's Prayer end with “For thine is the kingdom”?
The closing doxology — “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.” — stands in Matthew 6:13 in the King James Version, following the Greek manuscript tradition the KJV translators worked from. It is absent from the earliest surviving Greek manuscripts of Matthew, which is why many modern translations place it in a footnote instead. Its language closely echoes David's prayer in 1 Chronicles 29:11.
Is it “debts” or “trespasses” in the Lord's Prayer?
The KJV of Matthew 6:12 reads “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Luke 11:4 reads “forgive us our sins.” The word “trespasses,” recited in many churches, comes from the liturgical tradition and picks up the vocabulary of the two verses that follow the prayer, where Jesus speaks of forgiving “men their trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).