Johann Sebastian Bach composed the church cantata Du sollt Gott, deinen Herren, lieben (You shall love God, your Lord),[1] BWV 77 in Leipzig for the thirteenth Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 22 August 1723.

[2] The cantata text was written by Johann Oswald Knauer[3] and appeared in Gotha in 1720 in Gott-geheiligtes Singen und Spielen (Holy singing and playing to God).

[4] The text relates closely to the readings, even to the situation in which the parable was told, referring to the question of a lawyer what needs to be done to achieve eternal life.

A later hand added the text of the eighth stanza of David Denicke's hymn "Wenn einer alle Ding verstünd" (1657).

Wilhelm Rust, who edited the cantata for the 19th-century Bach-Gesellschaft Ausgabe (BGA), considered this text as chosen by Karl Friedrich Zelter, but included it nonetheless in the published score.

Werner Neumann did not think that the text of the concluding chorale was well-chosen, so for his presentation of the cantata in the 20th-century New Bach Edition (Neue Bach-Ausgabe, NBA) he replaced it by a stanza from Denicke's "O Gottes Sohn, Herr Jesu Christ" hymn (1657).

He scored it for four vocal soloists (soprano (S), alto (A), tenor (T) and bass (B)), a SATB mixed choir, and an orchestra of tromba da tirarsi (Baroque slide trumpet) (tir), two oboes (Ob), two violins (Vl), viola (Va), and basso continuo (Bc) including bassoon (Fg).

An aria for soprano, "Mein Gott, ich liebe dich von Herzen" (My God, I love You from my heart),[1] is accompanied by two obbligato oboes which frequently play in tender third parallels.

[2] The last aria for alto with an obbligato trumpet, "Ach, es bleibt in meiner Liebe" (Ah, in my love there is still ),[1] takes the form of a sarabande.

[9] In contrast, Bach wrote in the middle section a long trumpet solo of "ineffable beauty", as a "glorious glimpse of God's realm".