Gleichwie der Regen und Schnee vom Himmel fällt (Just as the rain and snow fall from heaven),[1] BWV 18, is an early church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach.

The closing chorale is the eighth stanza of Lazarus Spengler's hymn "Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt".

When he performed the work again as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, he added two recorders to double viola I and II an octave higher, thus creating a lighter sound overall.

This text was written for the Eisenach court and published in Gotha in 1711 in the collection Geistliches Singen und Spielen (Sacred singing and playing),[4] which had been set to music by Georg Philipp Telemann.

[6] In the third movement, the poet combines warnings of the dangers to God's word in the style of a sermon with four lines of prayer from a litany by Martin Luther.

[6] Gardiner finds all three cantatas for the occasion, dealing with God's word, "characterised by his vivid pictorial imagination, an arresting sense of drama, and by music of freshness and power that lodges in the memory".

[3] This is Bach's first adaptation of recitative in a church cantata, not following operatic patterns, but "a lucid presentation of the text in a dignified, highly personal style".

The central movement, "Mein Gott, hier wird mein Herze sein" (My soul’s treasure is God’s word),[1] is unique in Bach's cantatas, the choir soprano interrupts the prayer of the male soloists four times, followed by a conclusion of the full choir "Erhör uns, lieber Herre Gott!"

[6] Gardiner compares the imagery of the recitatives: "all adds up to a vivid, Brueghel-like portrayal of rural society at work – the sower, the glutton, the lurking devil, as well as those pantomime villains, the Turks and the Papists.

He compares the movement to Telemann's setting of the same text and states: On the other hand here is Bach, seeming to relish the contrast between archaic litany and his new 'modern' recitative style in which he empowers his two male soloists to voice personal pleas for faith and resolution in the face of multiple provocation[s] and devilish guile, with increasingly virtuosic displays of coloratura, ever-wider modulations and extravagant word-painting on 'berauben' (to rob), 'Verfolgung' (persecution) and 'irregehen' (to wander off course).

[10]The only aria, "Mein Seelenschatz ist Gottes Wort" (My soul’s treasure is God’s word),[1] is set for soprano, accompanied by the four violas in unison.

[12] Choirs with one voice per part (OVPP) and ensembles playing period instruments in historically informed performances are marked by green background.