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“This is how you should pray:

‘Our Father in heaven,
    hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
    on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts
    as we forgive our debtors.
13 And do not lead us into temptation,[a]
    but deliver us from the evil one.’

14 If you forgive others for the wrongs they have done, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.

16 Fasting in Secret.[b]“Whenever you fast, do not assume a gloomy expression like the hypocrites who contort their faces so that others may realize that they are fasting. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.

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Footnotes

  1. Matthew 6:13 Temptation: in the New Testament, temptation is a test in which Satan tries to destroy the believer. Consequently, it cannot be attributed to God. God, however, can give the strength and means of overcoming it: this is the meaning of the petition. The Semitic expression “do not lead us into” is therefore to be understood as meaning “do not allow us to enter into or succumb to temptation” (see Mt 26:41; 1 Tim 6:9).
  2. Matthew 6:16 Fasting is an action that evinces a desire to live more closely in the disinterested service of God; this produces profound joy. The sole fast prescribed by the Mosaic Law was that of the Day of Atonement (see Lev 16:31), but in later Judaism fasting became a regular practice (see Didache 9:1).