Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, BWV 44 ""They will put you under banishment""

Bach wrote the cantata in his first year in Leipzig for the Sunday Exaudi, the Sunday after Ascension. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle of Peter, "serve each other" (1 Peter 4:8–11), and from the second Farewell discourse in the Gospel of John, the promise of the Paraclete, the "Spirit of Truth", and the announcement of persecution (John 15:26–16:4). The unknown poet begins with a quotation from the Gospel. One year later, poet Christiana Mariana von Ziegler would begin her cantata text for the same occasion, Sie werden euch in den Bann tun, BWV 183, with the same quotation, but other than that, the two works have little in common. The poet reflects the persecution of the Christians, confirmed by a chorale as movement 4, the first stanza of Martin Moller's "Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid". In movement 5 the poet gives a reason, the Antichrist even thinking to work for God by fighting the Christians and their teaching. In movement 6, the suffering ones are promised God's help. The closing chorale is the final stanza of Paul Fleming's "In allen meinen Taten".