Hello, everyone; I am Chris, your teacher on Learn British English Free. I hope you
are well. In this lesson I wanted to try some material which is quite a bit
different; I'm going to help you understand a traditional Christian
prayer - a very famous one - it's called 'The Lord's Prayer'. I am not religious;
however, this prayer - it's a short piece of text - is one of the most common things
that we hear It's from the Bible and it's often used in churches in
weddings, so it's an important part of traditional British culture from history,
from the past. Maybe it's not so important now but - for example - I was at a
wedding recently and this prayer was used as part of it so I wanted to
explain this to everyone. If it's not interesting for you, please just stop
watching; I'm not trying to explain anything more than a simple bit of
British culture. I have put the text in the description; please read along with
me. I'm going to read it once, then explain some very old vocabulary and
then read it again. This is the 'Lord's Prayer' (first reading): 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, the power and the
glory forever and ever. Amen. There will be some words in there which I'm sure
you don't know. I'm going to explain them now. They are very old they are not
used commonly now but let's understand them as that's the point of this. 'Our
Father' - the prayer is to God - Father is God in this context, so the prayer is
talking to God. 'Our Father, who art in heaven...' 'Art' in the old use means 'are' like
'are' - part of the verb 'be'. 'Hallowed be thy name'.
'Hallowed' is an old word - it means 'holy'. Holy - if something is holy it's an
adjective it has a special religious value or meaning. Thy - 'thy name' - 'thy' is an
old word which means 'your' in the possessive sense, so 'hallowed be thy name'
'forgive us our trespasses' - 'trespass' in the modern sense is a bad thing where
someone goes in a place they are not allowed, like someone else's property. In
this old sense, 'trespass' means to do a bad thing - it's incorrect on a moral or
religious level. 'Thine is the kingdom...' 'Thine (thine), like 'thy' but thine again
means 'your'; and 'forever and ever. Amen.' 'Amen' is always used in Christian
prayers at the end; it's something that people repeat and say to show that they
agree with the meaning, the message of the prayer. It's a very common and
important word in Christianity: Amen. Let me read it for you one more time now
that we know a bit more about the vocabulary. '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 that trespass against us. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the
glory, forever and ever. Amen. That's it. That was the Lord's Prayer - part of many
Christian ceremonies and religious readings. I hope that you found it
interesting and and something different. Please remember much of the vocabulary
was very old - it's not used now by native speakers, but we still do use it as part
of traditional prayers like this. Thank you for watching; please do subscribe on
Learn British English Free on YouTube; like our Learn British English Page on
Facebook or join the Learn English Free group on there you can follow us on
Instagram, on Tumblr, on Twitter ... any website you like; the links are in the
description and the main website is www.learnbritishenglish.co.uk/ . Thanks for your
time; my name is Chris; I will see you soon for some - perhaps - more modern
British English. Bye for now.