Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden (Stay with us, for evening falls),[1] BWV 6, is a cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach for use in a Lutheran service.

The prescribed readings for the feast day were Peter's sermon from the Acts of the Apostles, and the Road to Emmaus narration from the Gospel of Luke.

The text ends with the second stanza of Martin Luther's hymn "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort".

Bach structured the cantata in six movements and scored it for four vocal soloists, a four-part choir and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of oboes, strings and continuo.

The closing chorale is the second stanza of Martin Luther's hymn "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort" (Maintain us, Lord, within thy word).

The cantata opens with "Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden" (Abide with us; for it is toward evening),[4] a large-scale tripartite chorus,[3] reminiscent of a slow sarabande or of the closing Ruht wohl, ihr heiligen Gebeine of the St John Passion.

The vocal lines in this movement descend on "denn es will Abend werden" (for evening is nigh) "as if the gloom of night were weighing upon them".

[3] The voices, accompanied first only by the continuo, perform a fugue on two subjects at the same time: "denn es will Abend werden" (for it is toward evening) and "und der Tag hat sich geneiget" (and the day is far spent).

[3] The Bach scholar Klaus Hofmann compares the slow-fast-slow structure of the movement to the French overture and notes that it opens a new series of cantatas.

"[5] He notes that while descending motifs and modulations illustrate the emotions of insecurity when left alone in the dark, Bach "introduces a counter-balance" of remaining steadfast, "by threading 25 Gs then 35 B-flats played in unison by violins and violas through the surrounding dissonance" and by repeated pleas to Jesus to remain sung on one note during the fugue.

[7] Hofmann notes that the lively violin figures illustrate from the start the text about the "light of the Word of God shining more brightly", which appears only in the second part.