Why do we ask God to “lead us not into temptation”?

The Lord's Prayer in English has multiple layers of meaning, including the sixth petition that can be confusing to many because of the words it uses.

While most of the Our Father prayer is straightforward and typically easy to understand, the sixth petition, “lead us not into temptation,” can be confusing.

In fact, French Catholics even retranslated the prayer in 2017, changing it to “pray that God will not let them ‘enter into’ temptation, whereas before, ‘submit to’ temptation was the expression used.”

Original Greek phrase

The Catechism of the Catholic Church addressed this issue when it was first published and commented on how the original Greek phrase that underlies Our Father has multiple meanings:

This petition goes to the root of the preceding one, for our sins result from our consenting to temptation; we therefore ask our Father not to “lead” us into temptation. It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both “do not allow us to enter into temptation” and “do not let us yield to temptation.”
CCC 2846

The Catechism then affirms that God does not tempt anyone:

“God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one“; on the contrary, he wants to set us free from evil. We ask him not to allow us to take the way that leads to sin. We are engaged in the battle “between flesh and spirit”; this petition implores the Spirit of discernment and strength.
CCC 2846

Beyond our strength

In this context it is a plea to God, asking him to help us stay on the straight and narrow road to eternal life:

“Lead us not into temptation” implies a decision of the heart: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. . . . No one can serve two masters.” “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” In this assent to the Holy Spirit the Father gives us strength. “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the temptation will also provide the way of escape, so that you may be able to endure it.”
CCC 2848

Pope Benedict XVI also wrote extensively about this petition in his book, Jesus of Nazareth, which the National Catholic Register quotes to help explain the words of the Our Father:

When we pray it, we are saying to God: “I know that I need trials so that my nature can be purified,” but “don’t set too wide the boundaries within which I may be tempted, and be close to me with your protecting hand when it becomes too much for me.”

The key takeaway is to remember that our translations are precisely that, translations of an original text, and sometimes the full meaning of the phrase is not immediately evident.