Padre Nuestro En Ingles

Getting the Lord's Prayer Right in English

I spent a lot of years doing bilingual church work, and one of the most common requests I got was for Padre Nuestro En Ingles. People want it for services, for personal study, for sharing with English-speaking friends. It sounds simple. It isn't always straightforward, and I will walk you through why. The short version: the most widely accepted English text of the Lord's Prayer comes from the King James Version, Matthew 6:9-13. Here it is.

Padre Nuestro En Ingles: The Text

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. 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. That is the traditional Protestant rendering. If you need something more contemporary for a modern congregation, the New International Version offers this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today 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.

Notice the shift from "trespasses" to "debts." That matters more than people realize.

Which Version Should You Use?

This depends entirely on context. Catholic liturgy uses a different translation rooted in the Vulgate, and it varies by English-speaking country. In the US, the Catholic lectionary renders it as: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The differences are small but real. "Trespasses" versus "sins." The doxology — "For thine is the kingdom..." — is present in Protestant Bibles but absent in the official Catholic Mass text. That is a deliberate theological and textual choice, not an error.

If someone asked me to pull together a handout for a multilingual service, I would include both the KJV and the NIV side by side, note the Catholic liturgical version separately, and let people decide. That saved a lot of arguments I used to mediate.

A Problem I Ran Into

Years ago, a church group asked me to prepare a Padre Nuestro En Ingles booklet for a visit from a Spanish-speaking parish. They wanted it printed on glossy paper, two columns, Spanish on the left, English on the right. Standard stuff. The issue was that the Spanish side used the nueva versión estándar, which had "deudas" (debts), while the English side used KJV with "trespasses." On the surface, that seems fine because both translations exist in their own traditions. But when one congregant pointed out the mismatch, it became clear that some people were using the side-by-side version as a literal cross-reference, not as two independent traditions sitting next to each other. They expected the words to align one-to-one. My workaround was to add a small note at the bottom of every page explaining that the two traditions translate the original Greek differently, and that "debt," "trespass," and "sin" are all valid renderings of the same Greek word (hamartia in the broader sense, though technically the Lord's Prayer uses opheilemata, meaning "debts"). It took thirty extra seconds to write and prevented maybe three months worth of confused questions later.

Common Mistakes People Make

The biggest one is assuming there is one correct English version. There isn't. The original Greek exists in two slightly different forms — Matthew 6 and Luke 11 — and they are not identical. Luke's version is shorter. Most English Bibles follow Matthew, but some liturgical traditions blend them. If you are preparing something official, decide which source text you are translating from and state it. The second mistake is modernizing the language without understanding what you lose. Changing "thee" and "thou" to "you" is fine for readability. But changing "daily bread" to "bread for today" changes the theological weight. The Greek epiousios is rare — it appears only here in the New Testament — and scholars still debate whether it means "necessary," "essential," or "for the coming day." "Daily" is the traditional choice for a reason. Dropping it without thinking about it is lazy.

Where to Find Reliable Texts

I usually point people toward BibleGateway or YouVersion for quick lookup. Both let you toggle between translations instantly. For liturgical use, the official Catholic lectionary text is available through the USCCB website. If you need something academic with source-text notes, the Nestle-Aland Greek text with a parallel English translation is what I reach for. For printing purposes, I always double-check the text against at least two sources before sending anything to a printer. I once had a parish that printed five hundred booklets with "deliver us from the evil one" changed to "protect us from all harm" because a volunteer thought it sounded better. It did not sound better. It sounded like someone rewriting Scripture for marketing purposes, and it took me two weeks to get corrections printed and distributed.

Quick Reference: Padre Nuestro En Ingles by Tradition

• King James Version (Traditional Protestant): Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. 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.
• New International Version (Modern Protestant): Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today 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.
• Catholic Liturgical (US Lectionary): Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

None of these are wrong. They are just different choices made by different committees at different times. If you are putting together material for a general audience, the NIV is probably the safest bet for readability. If you are preparing something for a traditional service, stick with KJV. If it is Catholic, use the lectionary. The one thing that always trips people up is the doxology. The last line — "For thine is the kingdom..." — is in the KJV and many Protestant Bibles but is not in the earliest and best Greek manuscripts. Catholics and many modern Protestant denominations omit it from the liturgical reading. Some choose to include it anyway for historical reasons. Both positions are defensible. Just pick one and be consistent. If you need a printable version, I recommend taking the text you want, running it through a spell-checker, comparing it against a second source, and then printing a single test copy before committing to a large run. That single step has probably saved me from more bad print jobs than anything else in my experience.