What Does 'Deliver Us from Evil' Mean?

“But deliver us from evil” is the final petition, and it gathers up everything into one great cry for rescue. Luther explains it as “a summary petition”—asking “that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation.” It sweeps in all the harms that afflict us: sickness, danger, poverty, slander, grief, spiritual attack, and every trouble of this fallen world. Whatever threatens us, in this petition we hand it to God and ask him to deliver.

Many note that the phrase can be translated “deliver us from the evil one”—that is, from the devil himself, the source and orchestrator of so much evil. Both senses are true and included: we ask deliverance from evil in every form, and from the evil one behind so much of it. Jesus prayed similarly for his disciples: “keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15). So this petition acknowledges, soberly, that we live in enemy-occupied territory and cannot rescue ourselves.

But notice how the petition—and the whole prayer—finally ends. Luther points to it: we ask that God would deliver us from every evil, “and finally, when our last hour comes, grant us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.” The prayer looks past every temporary rescue to the ultimate deliverance: a peaceful death and the everlasting home where evil can no longer reach us. Paul prayed the same confidence: “The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom” (2 Timothy 4:18).

So this last petition holds together honest realism and unshakable hope. It does not pretend evil isn’t real or that this life will be free of it; it names the enemy and asks for rescue in the thick of the fight. But it ends looking toward the day when the deliverance will be complete and final—when God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more” (Revelation 21:4). We pray “deliver us from evil” as people who know we are not yet home, but who are absolutely certain we are going there.