The Lord's Prayer: Latin original, Vietnamese and English versions, and line by line commentary

The first word of the prayer is Father. In the Hebrew Bible, God is sometimes called Father, but not often, and usually in the sense of Father of the whole people. The Gospels show Jesus calling God Father as a matter of habit, and the Gospel of Mark even keeps the Aramaic word Abba in his own prayer. The Lord's Prayer hands that way of addressing God on to the disciples.

The word our also deserves attention. The prayer does not teach anyone to say my Father but our Father, and every petition that follows is in the plural: give us, forgive us, deliver us. A person praying alone in a room still speaks in the plural.

The words in heaven are easily taken to mean a place up in the sky. As a matter of doctrine, CCC 2794 explains that the expression does not point to a place but to a way of being, that is, the majesty of God above all things. The word Lạy at the head of the Vietnamese version is not in the original. It is the respectful Vietnamese form of address, as in lạy ông, lạy bà (said when bowing to one's elders), and it is placed there so that the opening line becomes a properly courteous address in Vietnamese.

The literal meaning of the Latin line is may your name be made holy. The Greek original ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου uses an imperative in the passive voice, a construction for which Vietnamese has no ready equivalent. The Protestant 1926 Vietnamese Bible translates it closely as Danh Cha được thánh, may your name be holy.

The Vietnamese Catholic version says chúng con nguyện danh Cha cả sáng. The word cả here is an old word meaning great, as in cả gan (bold), con cả (eldest child) and biển cả (the open sea). Cả sáng therefore means shining brightly, greatly radiant. The line thus means: we pray that your name may shine forth and be revered as holy. The word nguyện, to pray or to vow, brings the one praying into the sentence and turns a petition in the passive voice into the personal wish of the one who prays.

Commentators read this petition in two directions. The first sees it as asking God himself to reveal the holiness of his name in history. The second stresses the human side: the Father's name is hallowed when people live in a way worthy of that name. As a matter of doctrine, CCC 2807 explains that to hallow here is not understood first in the sense of making holy, since only God makes holy, but in the sense of recognizing as holy and treating in a holy way.

In the language of the Bible, a name is not just a label to call someone by. The name is the person, the self made known. To pray that the Father's name be hallowed is to pray that God himself be known.

Literally: may your kingdom come. The Vietnamese word nước here means kingdom, reign, rule. It is neither the everyday word nước for water nor a country in the sense of a map. The Greek word βασιλεία means both kingdom and kingship, that is, the act of reigning.

The Vietnamese says nước Cha trị đến, and the two words trị đến mean to come and reign, a compact old way of joining verbs that everyday speech seldom uses today. New readers sometimes split it wrongly into nước Cha trị, then đến (your kingdom reigns, then comes), so the two words need to be read as a single unit.

This is a point where ancient and modern commentators differ quite clearly. One reading places the petition at the end of time, asking that the day when God brings history to completion may come soon. Another places it in the present, asking that God reign now in human hearts and in daily life. A third, that of Saint Cyprian, recalled in CCC 2816, holds that the Kingdom of God may be Christ himself. Catholic doctrine does not choose one and discard the other two, but sees the three layers of meaning as joined together.

Literally: may your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth. The Latin puts heaven first and earth second, and the English version keeps that order. The Vietnamese reverses it and says dưới đất cũng như trên trời, on earth as in heaven, which is the more natural order in a Vietnamese sentence: heaven is taken as the model, and the prayer asks that earth may be the same.

The word thể hiện is where readers today are most likely to go astray. In everyday Vietnamese now, thể hiện means to express or display, as in expressing one's feelings. In the prayer the word carries an older meaning: to be carried out, to be fulfilled. The Protestant 1926 Vietnamese Bible renders the same line as Ý Cha được nên, may your will come to pass, which makes that meaning plain.

The Latin has a comma after the word cælo, and commentators have long noticed that the phrase on earth as in heaven can be read with the third petition alone, or with all three opening petitions together: the Father's name, the Father's kingdom and the Father's will, all asked to be on earth as in heaven. Both readings have their followers.

This is the hardest line of the whole prayer to translate, and the difficulty lies in a single Greek word: ἐπιούσιον, read epiousion, which the Vietnamese renders as hằng ngày, daily. According to CCC 2837, apart from this prayer in Matthew and Luke the word does not appear anywhere else in the New Testament. The third century commentator Origen noted that he could not find the word in any Greek author nor hear it in ordinary speech, and thought that the Gospel writers seemed to have coined it.

From ancient times, therefore, there have been several readings. The first is about time: bread for today, for each day, echoing the word today that follows immediately. This is the reading of the old Latin cotidianum and of the Vietnamese version. The second is about need: bread just enough to live on, neither more nor less. The third splits the word into epi, above, and ousia, substance, giving bread beyond substance. Saint Jerome followed this reading when he rendered Matthew in the Vulgate as supersubstantialem, and many Church Fathers understood it as the bread of the Eucharist. The fourth links the word to a Greek phrase for the following day, giving bread for tomorrow. Saint Jerome himself recorded that in a Hebrew Gospel he had read, this place had the word mahar, meaning tomorrow.

As a matter of doctrine, CCC 2837 holds together the sense of time, the sense of what is needed for life, and the sense of the bread of life that is the Eucharist. The Vietnamese chooses the word lương thực, food or provisions, which is broader than bread, because for Vietnamese people what sustains life day by day is rice, not bread.

Literally: and forgive us our debts. The Vietnamese keeps exactly that image: tha nợ chúng con, forgive us our debts. The Greek word in Matthew is ὀφειλήματα, debts, while Luke writes ἁμαρτίας, sins. The two Gospels use two different words for the same petition.

Many commentators point out that in Aramaic, the language historians believe Jesus usually spoke, one and the same word means both debt and sin. Matthew keeps the image of debt, while Luke says sin outright so that readers from a Greek background would understand easily. Luke himself still lets the original image show in the second half of the line, when he speaks of forgiving everyone who is indebted to us.

The traditional English version, however, uses the word trespasses, meaning offenses or wrongs, rather than debts. The King James Bible translates Matthew 6:12 as debts, but the English prayer said in churches has long followed the word trespasses, which the King James Bible uses in the two explanatory verses right after the prayer, Matthew 6:14 and 15, to translate the Greek παραπτώματα, offenses. This is one example showing that the three versions on this page are not each a word for word translation of one another.

Literally: as we ourselves also forgive those who are indebted to us. The Vietnamese: như chúng con cũng tha kẻ có nợ chúng con. The word kẻ in the prayer does not carry the slighting tone it has in Vietnamese speech today. In older Vietnamese, kẻ simply means a person, as in kẻ trên người dưới (those above and those below) and kẻ ở người đi (those who stay and those who leave).

This is the only petition in the prayer that comes with a clause about what the one praying does. Matthew uses a verb in the completed tense, ἀφήκαμεν, as we have forgiven. Luke uses the present tense, as we forgive. The Byzantine text of Matthew has the present tense, like Luke.

Commentators weigh the word as in two ways. Some read it as a measure: forgive us to the same degree that we forgive others. Others read it as an accompanying condition, not a price paid to buy forgiveness but a sign that the heart has opened. The Gospel of Matthew places, right after the prayer, in verses 14 and 15, two verses that explain this petition alone, which shows that the author saw it as the crucial point.

The literal meaning of the Latin is and do not lead us into temptation. The Greek original καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν also uses a verb meaning to bring in, to carry into. Read literally, the line seems to imply that God himself might lead people into temptation, and that is where readers often stumble.

The Vietnamese says xin chớ để chúng con sa chước cám dỗ, and so translates from the outset with the sense of do not let rather than do not lead. The word sa means to fall into, as in sa chân (to lose one's footing) and sa lưới (to fall into a net). The word chước means a scheme or a trick, as in mưu chước (a ruse). Sa chước cám dỗ is therefore to fall into the snares of temptation, a more concrete image than the word temptation on its own.

As a matter of doctrine, CCC 2846 explains that the Greek verb here means both do not allow us to enter into temptation and do not let us yield to temptation, and cites the Letter of James, chapter 1, verse 13, that God tempts no one. The Greek word πειρασμός is also broader than temptation and can mean trial or testing. Commentators therefore take two directions: some understand everyday temptations, others the great trial of the end times.

Literally: but free us from evil. The Vietnamese: nhưng cứu chúng con cho khỏi sự dữ, but save us from evil. The word dữ in older Vietnamese means bad or evil, the opposite of lành, good, as in điềm dữ (an ill omen) and tin dữ (bad news). Sự dữ means evil, not fierceness.

The Greek τοῦ πονηροῦ at the end of Matthew can be understood in two ways, and the ancient commentators divided early on this point. Grammatically it can be neuter, evil, or masculine, the evil one. The Latin tradition has generally taken the first sense, while many Greek Fathers took the second. As a matter of doctrine, CCC 2851 says that evil here is not an abstraction but refers to a person, Satan, the Evil One. For this reason some Vietnamese prayer books and homilies capitalize it as sự Dữ.

Luke does not have this petition. Luke's version stops at the request not to be let fall into temptation.

Amen is a word of Hebrew origin, kept unchanged through Greek and Latin and on into Vietnamese. According to CCC 2856, it means so be it. Vietnamese speakers pronounce it a men.

There is a detail few people notice. When praying on their own, at home or with the Rosary, Catholics close the prayer with Amen. But at Mass, no one says Amen after cứu chúng con cho khỏi sự dữ, deliver us from evil, because the priest goes straight on with a prayer that extends the last petition, and the congregation then answers with the doxology. The Latin missal likewise prints no Amen at that point.