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The Lord's Prayer
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Ayden saying the Lord's Prayer, the most important prayer for Christians. He needs a little help at the end but manages alright.

 

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 and ever.
Amen.

This prayer is usually prayed in old fashioned English, so a few things look strange today because they come from Middle English (11th-15th centuries). We'll mark the archaic English words with AE.

FATHER= God (as Christians see it)

ART= (AE) are. In Old English the verb To Be was: ic am, thou art, he is, we are, ye are, they are.

HALLOWED= Sanctified, sacred.

THY= (AE) /ðaɪ/ Your. The old forms of the second person pronoun in the were:
---- singular ----
Subject- Thou /ðaʊ/ (=you) e.g. thou art my foe = you are my enemy.
Object- Thee /ði:/ (=you) e.g. Ic love thee, thou lovest me = I love you, you love me.
Possessive adj/pron- Thy /ðaɪ/(before consonant) / Thine (before vowel)  (= your) e.g. Thy name is Peter = your name is Peter / I love thine eyes = I love your eyes.
---- plural ----
Subject- Ye /ji:/ (=you) e.g. Ye come for to help me = you come to help me.
Object- You /ju:/ (=you) e.g. She loveth you = She loves you guys.
Possessive- Youre /jʊər/ (=your) e.g. Hit is youre hus = It's your house.

THY KINGDOME COME= May your kingdom come to us. This construction is called subjunctive. It has almost disappeared in modern English (but we still say "God save the king", without -S because it's not a present, but a subjunctive). It was used to express a wish or a hope (like here) or something which was not real, but in modern English we express that using the auxiliaries MAY. God's Kingdom (the central idea in Jesus' preaching) is a society of justice, love and peace. So in this line we pray God that this world gets a better place.

THY WILL BE DONE= May your will be done / I want your wishes to come true. This is another example of the subjunctive. WILL here is a noun (not the auxiliary) and it means "volition" (desire, wish, what you want). So this sentence really means: "I hope everything happens according to what you want".

TRESPASSES= sins, offences, errors.

INTO= The boy says IN TEMPTATION, but the correct form here is INTO.

DELIVER US= (a bit old fashioned) Save us. We can say "Jesus saved us" or "Jesus delivered us", and we can also say that Jesus is our Saviour or that Jesus is our Deliverer.

EVIL= /i:vəl/ The opposite of good (noun); the bad things; the wicked things. The opposite of "the good things" or "the good qualities".

FOR= Because.

THINE= (AE) Yours (singular).

AMEN= (BrE, AmE) /ɑ:men/ (AmE) /eɪmen/  A Hebrew word usually used to end Christian or Jewish prayers. It is used to express that you completely agree with everything said, and you hope it will all be true.

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