The Lord’s Prayer written in Old English in 1050. Via the British Library.
The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9b-13a) in English for each century that I could find:
400s:
500s:
600s:
700s:
800s:
900s: from 995:
Fæder ūre þū þē eart on heofonum
Sī þīn nama gehālgod
Tō becume þīn rice
Gewurþe þīn willa
On erðon swā swā on heofonum
Urne gedæghwamlīcan hlāf syle ūs tō dæg
And forgyf ūs ūre gyltas
Swā swā wē forgyfð ūrum gyltendum.
And ne gelæd þū ūs on costnunge
Ac alȳs ūs of yfele.
1000s: as it appeared in a manuscript in 1050 (as shown at top):
1100s: Wessex Gospels, circa 1175:
Fader ure þu þe ert on heofene.
sye þin name gehalged.
to-becume þin rice.
Gewurðe þin gewille.
on eorðan swa swa on heofenan.
ure dayghwamlice hlaf syle us to dayg.
& forgyf us ure geltas
swa swa we forgyfeð ure geltenden.
& ne læd þu us on costnunge.
ac ales us of yfele
1200s:
1300s: Wycliffe’s Bible in 1389:
Oure fadir That art in hevenes
Halwid be thi name
Thi kingdom come to
Be thi wille don
On erthe as in hevenes
Give to us this day oure bred ovir othir substaunce
And forgiv us oure dettis
As we forgiven oure dettours
And lede us not in to temptacioun
But delyevr us from yvel
1400s:
1500s: Tyndale’s Bible in 1525:
O oure father which arte in heven,
halowed be thy name;
let thy kingdom come;
thy wyll be fulfilled
as well in erth as hit ys in heven;
geve vs this daye oure dayly breade;
and forgeve vs oure treaspases,
even as we forgeve them which treaspas vs;
leede vs not into temptacion,
but delyvre vs ffrom yvell.
1600s: King James or Authorized Version (KJV/AV) as it first appeared in print in 1611:
1700s: King James Bible of 1769:
Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
1800s: English Revised Version (RV) of 1885:
Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done,
as in heaven, so on earth.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And bring us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
1900s: the Revised Standard Version (RSV) of 1952:
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 debts,
As we also have forgiven our debtors;
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
2000s: the English Standard Version (ESV), as it appeared on the Internet in 2021:
– Abagond, 2021.
Update (December 28th): Added the Wessex Gospels, circa 1175. Images for 1050, 1611 and 2021.
See also:
- Luke 4:4 – a brief history
- YouTube: A London accent from 1346 to 2006 – hear how English pronunciation has changed in just one city over much of this same period. From Simon Roper.
- Roman alphabet – see how writing itself has changed over the past 4,000 years.
- English
- 450-1150: Old English
- 1150-1450: Middle English
- 1450- : Modern English
- 1450-1650: Early Modern English
- Bible translations
- Vulgate – the Latin Bible, used by English translators before 1500.
- English Bible translations
- St Gregory of Nyssa: The Lord’s Prayer – written in the late 300s, before English even existed!
610
Abagond 
the anglican church i came up in said ‘forgive us our tresspasses as we forgive those who trespass against us’
and at the end, ‘for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.
world without end
amen.’
interesting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ v8driver
Same with the Methodist church I came up in. I noticed that the passage from Tyndale’s Bible above uses the “trespass” wording. (The Old English version uses the word “gylt” from which we get the modern “guilt.”)
The second line you quoted has its roots in the difference in the Bible between the versions of the Lord’s Prayer in Luke and in Matthew. There’s been some debate over whether that last line is actually part of the prayer or is a doxology. It’s still included in the Catholic liturgy, but is said a little bit after the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, with some other text in between.
I couldn’t quickly find any indication of what the Orthodox do now, but the early Greek church did often include that line as part of the Lord’s Prayer.
https://www.osvnews.com/2017/10/25/the-our-father-and-the-doxology/
https://www.kjvtoday.com/home/is-the-doxology-to-the-lords-prayer-in-matthew-613-a-late-addition
LikeLiked by 1 person
Actually our wording at the end was slightly different: “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever, Amen.”
LikeLike
Some other word stuff from the Old English version that might be of interest:
🔹the letters þ and ð are pronounced “th” (so þīn is pronounced thine, exactly what it means)
🔹rice in the third line (pronounced ree-chah), meaning realm, is a cognate with Reich in German. You can still see a remnant of rice in modern English within the word bishopric
🔹 hlāf in the sixth line is the ancestor of loaf in modern English (as in loaves of bread)
🔹 syle in the sixth line means “to give” in Old English but is the root word of sell
🔹 alȳs in the last line is a cognate with loosen
🔹 yfele in the last line is the root word of evil, which becomes more obvious if you consider f and v are similar sounds often used interchangeably in older forms of English
So “alȳs ūs of yfele” literally is “loosen us of evil” (i.e., loosen the binds that evil has on us)
LikeLike
Very interesting, Abagond. The Old English piece sounded simultaneously foreign and familiar to me, but mostly foreign. If you ask me, it sounded like something that magical creatures or elves would speak. It had a very manly, German sound. The Middle English section was the first part in which i could begin understanding things almost entirely (I’d say around 90 percent). As for the Tyndale and onwards, I understood everything completely—even with the dated spelling. It shows us how much the language has changed (and stayed the same) over the years. As your post shows, English has not (arguably) changed much in around seven hundred years. Quite an achievement for a language if you ask me. I also noticed that the older pronunciations sound a lot like how my parents speak—ha!
LikeLiked by 1 person
@ Everett F. Pomare
“it sounded like something that magical creatures or elves would speak”
That’s probably due to J.R.R. Tolkien. His “day job” was professor of medieval languages at Oxford University, and Old English was one of his major influences when developing the Middle Earth languages in The Lord of the Rings. Some of the words and names he used in his novels are taken directly from Old English and Old Norse.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Update: Added the Wessex Gospels, circa 1175. Images for 1050, 1611 and 2021.
LikeLike