7 days · About 8 minutes a day

The Lord's Prayer, Line by Line: A 7-Day Bible Study

This is a free 7-day Bible study on the Lord's Prayer for women: one line a day, about eight minutes, and the whole prayer said together on the seventh morning. Most of us can say the Our Father without thinking, which is the difficulty and the opportunity. Each day slows down on a single line of Matthew 6:9–13 and reads it alongside the passage it rests on: "Our Father in heaven" and why Jesus chose that word; "hallowed be Your name" as a request rather than praise; "Your will be done" heard a second time from Gethsemane; "daily bread" with the manna in Exodus 16 and the untranslatable Greek word epiousios; "forgive us our debts" with the unforgiving servant, and a careful word that forgiving never means going back into harm; "lead us not into temptation" as the one line that admits you have a limit; and on the last day, Luke's shorter version, the honest note that "for Yours is the kingdom" was added by the early church, and the whole prayer prayed through. It assumes no prior knowledge, and it doesn't require the word "Father" to be an easy one.

Length: 7 days — one line a day, start any time
Time per day: About 8 minutes
Passages: Matthew 6:9–13, Luke 11:1–4, and one passage per line
Translation: Berean Standard Bible (BSB); King James for Day 7
Format: Read here, or listen in the app
Best for: Learning to pray; a first one-week study; anyone who says it without thinking

The 7-day schedule, line by line

One line of the prayer each morning, in order. The line itself is always read last, on its own.

Day	Line	Passage	Read alongside	Line to carry
1	Our Father in heaven	Matthew 6:9	—	Our Father in heaven.
2	Hallowed be Your name	Matthew 6:6–9	—	Hallowed be Your name.
3	Your kingdom come, Your will be done	Matthew 6:10	Matthew 26:39–42 (Gethsemane)	Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
4	Give us this day our daily bread	Matthew 6:11	Exodus 16 (the manna)	Give us this day our daily bread.
5	Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors	Matthew 6:12, 14–15	Matthew 18 (the unforgiving servant)	Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
6	Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us	Matthew 6:13	Matthew 26:41 · 1 Corinthians 10:13	But deliver us from the evil one.
7	For Yours is the kingdom — the whole prayer	Luke 11:1–2 · Matthew 6:9–13 (KJV)	Luke 11:1–4	For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.

What this plan covers

The Lord's Prayer is the only thing the disciples ever asked Jesus to teach them, and He answered with words rather than a method — about twelve seconds of them. This study takes it one line a day. Day 1 is the address, "Our Father in heaven": Father, because this is a relationship and not an office; in heaven, because the One you're talking to can act; and "our", because nobody has ever said it alone. Day 2, "hallowed be Your name", is the first request, asking that God be known as He really is. Day 3, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven", is read next to Jesus's prayer in Gethsemane, where the same words cost everything. Day 4, "give us this day our daily bread", turns the prayer toward us with the smallest request in it, read with the manna that couldn't be stored. Day 5, "forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors", is the only line with a condition and the only one Jesus comments on afterwards, read with the parable of the unforgiving servant. Day 6, "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one", asks not to be brought to the point of breaking, with Paul's promise of a way out. Day 7 puts it back together — Luke's version, the King James wording, and the doxology "for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever." Every day follows the same seven movements — Arrive, Set out, Hear, Hear again, Consider, Pray, Carry — and ends with that day's line to carry.

Day 1 in full: Our Father in Heaven (Matthew 6:9)

This is the complete first session, exactly as it's read in the app. Every day of the plan follows this shape.

Arrive

Welcome.

First morning of seven. There is nothing to prepare, and nothing here to get right.

Breathe in, slowly. And out.

Seven mornings, and one prayer taken a line at a time. Today we are only doing the opening, and it is four words long.

Most of us can say this prayer without thinking. That is the difficulty and it is also the opportunity.

Set out

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray.

It is worth stopping on that, because it is the only thing in any of the gospels that they ever ask Him to teach them. They watched Him heal people and argue with lawyers and calm a storm, and the one request they made was about this.

And He does not give them a method. No posture, no hour of the day, no technique for concentrating.

He gives them words, and there are not many of them. You can say the whole thing in about twelve seconds.

We'll hear all of it this morning so you have the shape in your ear. Then we stay on the first four words for the rest of the day.

Hear: Matthew 6:9–13

Matthew, chapter six, from verse nine.

So then, this is how you should pray:

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

And now only the opening.

Our Father in heaven.

Hear again

Our Father in heaven.

Three parts, and each one changes what kind of conversation you think you are having.

Our. Father. In heaven.

One question, and please don't tidy the answer up on the way out.

What is the first word that arrives when you hear Father? Whatever it is. Nobody is listening, and it does not have to be the correct one.

Consider

He could have opened it with God. Or Lord. Or Almighty. All true, and any of them a perfectly reasonable way to begin.

He chose Father.

Which means the first thing you say, every morning, before you ask for a single thing, is a word about relationship. You are not filing a request with an office. You are a child speaking to a parent who was already listening before you opened your mouth.

For some people that is an easy word. For a great many it is the hardest word in the whole prayer, and if that is you this morning, then hold on to this: He knew that when He chose it.

He is not asking you to picture your own father. He is offering you His, which is a different thing entirely and may take a while to believe.

Then: in heaven. That is not an address, and it does not mean far away. Heaven, in the Bible, is wherever God's will is done completely and without argument.

So in heaven means the One you are talking to is not merely kind. He can.

Near enough to be called Father. Great enough to do something. You need both, and most of the unhelpful ideas people carry about God are one of those without the other.

And then the very first word, which is the one we skip. Our. Not my. Even alone in your kitchen at six in the morning, you are saying it alongside everybody who has ever said it. There is no version of this prayer in which you are the only person in the room.

Pray

Let's pray it one word at a time, and let each one take longer than feels necessary.

Our.

Think of one person who is praying somewhere this morning. Pray next to them.

Father.

Say what is actually true about how that word lands for you. He can take it, and He would rather have the true version.

In heaven.

Tell Him one thing you need Someone who can.

Amen.

Carry

Four words to carry today.

Our Father in heaven.

Say them once, as though for the first time.

And try them somewhere ordinary later — a queue, a corridor, the moment before you open a door you would rather not open. Just the four words, and nothing after them.

That is a complete prayer. It has a person in it and it has an address, and there is nothing missing.

Tomorrow: hallowed be Your name.

For now — you have a Father. Go and be His.

Listen to Day 1 and the rest of the prayer in the app. Every session is read aloud, softly, over quiet music — about eight minutes a day, one line at a time.

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Days 2–7: one line each morning

Short summaries of the remaining sessions. Each full session is around 800 words and takes about eight minutes to listen to.

Day 2 · Hallowed be Your name (Matthew 6:6–9)

“Hallowed be Your name.”

Hallowed survives in this one sentence and almost nowhere else. It means to make holy, to set apart — and grammatically it's a request, not praise: the first of six things the prayer asks for. In that world a name was your reputation, what people could rely on when you weren't in the room. And the order is doing something to you slowly: the first three lines are all about God, so every morning you spend half the prayer wanting something that isn't for you.

Day 3 · Your kingdom come, Your will be done (Matthew 6:10)

“Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Come and be done: neither is something you do. We talk about building the kingdom; the prayer asks for an arrival. Then the same words read a second time from Gethsemane, where Jesus first asks plainly for the cup to pass, and only then says may Your will be done. So you're allowed to want what you want and say it. If this line sticks in your throat, you're praying it the way it was prayed the second time — through your teeth.

Day 4 · Give us this day our daily bread (Matthew 6:11)

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

The word we translate daily is epiousios, and it appears almost nowhere else in ancient Greek; it may have been coined for this prayer because no existing word was small enough. Its echo is the manna, which rotted if you stored it. That looks like a punishment and is a design: someone with a year's supply doesn't have to go outside in the morning. Not security — enough. And every word is plural: give us, our bread.

Day 5 · Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12, 14–15)

“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

Matthew's word is the money word, opheilēmata: a ledger, something owed. Forgiveness isn't a warm feeling; it's a decision to stop expecting payment. This session is careful: forgiving isn't saying it didn't happen, and it isn't walking back into a room where you'll be hurt again. It's giving up the right to collect. And the condition isn't a fee, it's a symptom — the servant in Matthew 18 plainly never understood what had been done for him.

Day 6 · Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us (Matthew 6:13)

“But deliver us from the evil one.”

Peirasmos means both temptation and trial — the pull toward something wrong, and the pressure that would break you. This is the first line in the prayer that admits you're weak, and it doesn't ask to be made strong enough for anything; it assumes a limit and asks God to respect it. Deliver is rhuomai: to seize and pull away, a hand on your collar. And Paul's promise isn't that the pressure lifts. It's that there's a door, usually an ordinary one.

Day 7 · For Yours is the kingdom — the whole prayer (Luke 11:1–2 · Matthew 6:9–13 (KJV))

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.”

Luke's version is shorter: Jesus gave a shape, not a formula. And the ending — for Yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory — isn't in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew; the early church added it so the prayer wouldn't stop on the word evil. This session says so plainly, then prays it anyway. The whole prayer, put back together: twelve seconds, said in every hour for two thousand years, short enough that a frightened person can remember it.

How to use this study

In order, one line a day. The prayer's order is part of what it teaches: three lines about God before one about you.
Carry the line into the day. Each session ends with the line to say somewhere ordinary — a queue, a corridor, the moment before a door you'd rather not open.
Take Day 5 slowly. Forgiveness may take longer than the session, or the week. The session says that's allowed and isn't failure.
With a group. Seven lines fits a week on your own or seven meetings. Day 3 (Gethsemane) and Day 5 (forgiveness) are the richest to discuss.
Next. The Sermon on the Mount walk reads the whole of Matthew 5–7, where this prayer sits.

Frequently asked questions

What does the Lord's Prayer mean, line by line?

It has an address and six requests. 'Our Father in heaven' — near enough to call Father, great enough to act. Then three requests about God: that His name be honoured, His kingdom come, His will be done on earth as in heaven. Then three about us: bread for today, forgiveness as we forgive, and not to be brought to the point of breaking. This plan takes one line a day for seven days.

What does 'hallowed' mean?

To make holy, or to set apart as unlike everything else. It's a request rather than a statement: 'hallowed be Your name' asks that God would be known as He actually is — in that world a name meant your reputation.

What does 'daily bread' mean in the Greek?

The Greek word is epiousios, which appears almost nowhere else in ancient literature. The best guesses are 'bread for the coming day' or 'bread enough to exist on'. It may have been coined for this prayer.

Why do some versions say 'debts' and others 'trespasses' or 'sins'?

Matthew uses the money word, debts; Luke uses sins; 'trespasses' comes from the verses right after the prayer in Matthew and from older English liturgies. Day 5 uses 'debts' because the picture — a ledger, and deciding to stop collecting — is what makes forgiveness something you can do.

Does forgiving mean I have to go back to someone who hurt me?

No. Day 5 says it plainly: forgiving is not saying it didn't happen, not pretending it cost nothing, and not walking back into a room where you'll be hurt again. Those are separate questions, and some need a wiser person to help you answer them.

Is 'for Yours is the kingdom' in the Bible?

It isn't in the oldest manuscripts of Matthew. The early church added the doxology so the prayer wouldn't end on the word 'evil'. Day 7 explains this and then prays it anyway, in the King James wording.

How long is each day?

About eight minutes. Each session is a short guided reading of roughly 800 words on one line of the prayer, with a passage from elsewhere in the Bible that the line rests on.

Is it suitable if 'Father' is a hard word for me?

Yes. Day 1 assumes nothing and doesn't require the word to be easy. It says plainly that for many people it's the hardest word in the prayer, and that Jesus knew that when He chose it.

Do I need the app?

No. The schedule and Day 1 are here in full. In the HER Hallow app each line is read aloud with music, about eight minutes a day.

One line a day, read aloud to you. The HER Hallow app has the Lord's Prayer and twelve other walks — Bible reading plans for women you can listen to.

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Written by the HER Hallow team.