The text was compiled around 1930 by Otto Riethmüller from older stanzas by different hymnwriters, intended as a wake-up call to the church in a Germany facing the rise of the Nazis.

[2] Riethmüller took stanzas 3 and 7 from Johann Christian Nehring, a Protestant minister in Halle who was close to August Hermann Francke and pietism.

[5] Riethmüller unified the stanzas by ending each one with a fifth line, "Erbarm dich, Herr" (Have mercy, Lord), making it a late Leise.

[5] A 1970 ecumenical gathering at the centre of church music education in Schlüchtern suggested a different last stanza, also found in David's hymn.

[9] It appeared in 1971 in the Hymn Book of the Anglican Church of Canada, in the Dutch Liedboek voor de kerken of 1973.

[6] The ecumenical version was included in the Swiss Gemeinsame Kirchenlieder in 1973,[9] in the Catholic Gotteslob of 1975, and in the Czech Evangelicky Zpevnik in 1979.

The fifth stanza requests strength and courage for missionaries, and also the theological virtues: faith, hope and ardent love.

The sixth stanza looks even further at eternal glory already in our time, and requests that we may be able to work towards peace however small our power is ("mit unsrer kleinen Kraft").

[8] The tune was first a secular song, "Der reich Mann war geritten aus" (The rich man went on a ride), known in Bohemia from the 15th century but possibly even older.

[15] It was printed as a five-part setting by Jobst vom Brandt in the fifth part of Georg Forster's song collection Schöner fröhlicher neuer und alter deutscher Liedlein in Nuremberg in 1556.

[15] In 1566 it appeared with a German text of the Brethren, "Mensch, erheb dein Herz zu Gott" (Raise your heart to God).

[15] Other songs in English sung to the same tune are "At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing", "Hail this joyful day's return" and "Come, O come with sacred lays".

[18] Paul Horn wrote a chorale cantata for mixed choir, brass and organ, published by Carus in 1962.