 The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul's teaching on "works of the flesh" and "fruit of the Spirit" (), and from the Gospel of Luke, Cleansing ten lepers ().According to Christoph Wolff, the cantata text was written by Johann Jacob Rambach and published in 1720 in Halle in .The poet relates to the Gospel and compares the situation of man in general to that of the lepers.