Vergnügte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust in D major, BWV 170

Bach composed the cantata in Leipzig for the Sixth Sunday after Trinity. The prescribed readings for the Sunday are from the Epistle to the Romans, "By Christ's death we are dead for sin" (Romans 6:3–11), and from the Gospel of Matthew a passage from the Sermon on the Mount about better justice than the justice of merely observing laws and rules (Matthew 5:20–26). The text of the cantata is drawn from Georg Christian Lehms' Gottgefälliges Kirchen-Opfer (1711) and speaks of the desire to lead a virtuous life and so enter heaven and avoid hell.