Send Your Voice to the Great Spirit

The First Nation Version of the Bible was created by bible scholars and Native Americans to help bring scripture alive to the world of indigenous peoples in the Americas. As you read this translation of Jesus’s most famous prayer, what stands out to you? What do you find yourself resisting? What opens a door for you?

Instead, when you send your voice to the Great Spirit, here is how you should pray:

O Great Spirit, our Father from above, we honor your name as sacred and holy.

Bring your good road to us, where the beauty of your ways in the spirit-world above is reflected in the earth below.

Provide for us day by day - the elk, the buffalo, and the salmon. The corn, the squash, and the wild rice. All the things we need for each day.

Release us from the things we have done wrong, in the same way we release others for the things done wrong to us.

Guide us away from the things that tempt us to stray from your good road, and set us free from the evil one and his worthless ways. Aho! May it be so!

• First Nations Version - Matthew 6:9-13

Now go back and instead of reading this prayer, go ahead and pray it (and whatever else the Spirit inspires in you to pray as you do so).