Bartholomäus Ringwaldt (ca. 1531-99) published this hymn in 1582 in Frankfurt an der Oder in a book of hymns paraphrasing the Gospels for every Sunday and festival of the year. This text is not a Gospel paraphrase. It follows the hymn for Trinity Sunday under the heading "A prayer to the Holy Spirit," and its German begins "Gott heilger Geist, hilf uns mit Grund." Its three stanzas pray that the Spirit would lead us to embrace Christ in faith and serve Him, keep us treasuring His Word and fed with the Bread of Life, and finish at the hour of death the work He began in Baptism, "until we gladly may commend our souls into our Savior's hand, the crown of life obtaining," an echo of 2 Timothy 4:7-8. Oluf Hanson Smeby (1851-1929) translated it in 1909 for the Lutheran Hymnary (1913), of which he was chief editor. LSB revised his lines in each stanza; where Smeby wrote "We to His open wounds may fly," LSB reads "When we are sheltered by the cross / That canceled our transgressions." The tune ES IST GEWISSLICH first appeared at Wittenberg in 1533 with Luther's "Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice."
Sung at Our Saviour
2026