In Bach's typical format of the chorale cantata cycle, the text of the outer stanzas is retained unchanged, while an unknown librettist paraphrased the inner stanzas, in this case to three movements, two arias framing a recitative. According to Wolff, the librettist may have been Andreas Stübel, writing previously in 1724/25. The theme of the chorale is connected to the gospel in a general way: the believer's life depends on God's help and is lost without it. A connection is also provided by the image of flooding water that the psalm conveys, which begins "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side" (), and continues "then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul, then the proud waters had gone over our soul" (). The poet paraphrased it in the central recitative to "" ("Their fury would have, like a raging tide and like a foaming wave, flooded over us").