Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht, BWV 105

Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht (Lord, do not pass judgment on Your servant), () 105 is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. He composed it in Leipzig for the ninth Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 25 July 1723. The musicologist Alfred Dürr has described the cantata as one of "the most sublime descriptions of the soul in baroque and Christian art". Bach composed the cantata in 1723 in his first year in Leipzig for the Ninth Sunday after Trinity. It is likely that the anonymous librettist was a theologian from the city; the text begins with the second verse of Psalm 143, "And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified" (). The psalm is one of Martin Luther's Bußpsalmen, his German translations of the seven penitential psalms, first published in Wittenberg in early 1517, half a year before the Ninety-five theses. After being reprinted and even pirated all over Germany, there was a revised edition in 1525. The prescribed readings for the Sunday were from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, a warning of false gods and consolation in temptation (), and from the Gospel of Luke, the parable of the Unjust Steward (). The theme of the cantata is derived from the Gospel: since mankind cannot survive before God's judgement, he should forswear earthly pleasures, "the mammon of unrighteousness," for the friendship of Jesus alone; for by His death mankind's guilt was absolved, opening up "the everlasting habitations." That part of the libretto covers the fourth and fifth movements (the second recitatives and arias). The alto recitative draws from biblical allusions in —"Cast me not away from thy presence"— and —"I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers." The text of the soprano aria is borrowed from —"while accusing or else excusing one another." There is a reference to Paul's epistles in the second recitative, —"Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us" and "nailing it to his cross.