Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
THY KINGDOM COME as well belongs to the same thing as "thy will be done" — done, that is, in us. For at what moment does God ever cease to rule, holding as he does the heart of every king within his grasp? But whatever we wish for ourselves, we forecast in him and credit to him, since it is from him that we expect it. So if the coming of the Lord's kingdom is bound up both with God's will and with our own suspended hope, how is it that some people ask for a certain postponement in this present age, when the kingdom of God, whose coming we pray for, tends toward the consummation of the age? We wish for our reign to come sooner, not for our servitude to last longer. [2] Even if the wording of the prayer had not been fixed to ask for the coming of the kingdom, we would have volunteered that very cry on our own, hastening toward the embrace of our hope. [3] The souls of the martyrs cry out under the altar to the Lord, indignant: "How long, O Lord, until you avenge our blood upon the inhabitants of the earth?" For their vindication, of course, is set to be directed only at the end of the age. [4] Rather, Lord, how swiftly may your kingdom come — the wish of Christians, the confusion of the nations, the exultation of angels — for whose sake we are worn down in struggle, or rather, for whose sake we pray.