Herr, wie du willt, so schick’s mit mir in G minor, BWV 73 ""Lord, as you will, so let it be done with me""

Bach wrote the cantata in his first year in Leipzig for the Third Sunday after Epiphany. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were taken from the Epistle to the Romans, rules for life (Romans 12:17–21), and from the Gospel of Matthew, the healing of a leper (Matthew 8:1–13). The unknown poet takes the words of the leper "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean" as a starting point and recommends his attitude of trust for the situation of facing death. In the first movement he contrasts lines of Kaspar Bienemann's chorale "Herr, wie du willst, so schick's mit mir" with three sections of recitative. Movement 3 paraphrases Jeremiah 17:9. The words of movement 4 are the leper's words from the Gospel. The closing chorale is the final stanza of Ludwig Helmbold's hymn "Von Gott will ich nicht lassen".