Exegesis:

blepete mē planēthēte ‘beware lest you are led astray.’

planaō ‘to mislead,’ here in the passive ‘to be misled,’ ‘to be deceived,’ ‘to be led astray.’

polloi gar eleusontai epi tō onomati mou ‘for many will come under my name.’ eleusontai means here ‘to appear on the scene.’

ho kairos eggiken ‘the time has drawn near,’ or, ‘is at hand.’ kairos is the moment appointed by God for the eschatological events to happen. eggizō (cf. 7.12) is used here in a temporal sense.

mē poreuthēte opisō autōn ‘do not go after them,’ ‘do not follow them.’ opisō (cf. 9.23) here implies following as a disciple, or an adherent.

Translation:

Take heed that you are not led astray. What is to be avoided is the being led astray, of course, but in some languages a literal rendering of the negation in the dependent clause may suggest that it is the opposite, i.e. the not being led astray. To prevent this a rendering by two co-ordinated imperatives may be advisable, ‘take heed; don’t be led astray.’ — Take heed, or, ‘take care,’ ‘be on your guard,’ ‘watch out.’ — That you are not led astray, or, ‘deceived/misled,’ or, ‘that you do not go astray, or, err, or, believe lies’; Sranan Tongo has an idiomatic phrase, ‘that people do not turn your head.’

For in my name, or more descriptively, ‘as though they were I (or, were representing me).’

The time, or making explicit what this term implies in this context, ‘his time,’ ‘the time that he/the Christ comes.’ In Ekari the appropriate idiom is, ‘(the time when) the knots will be untied’ (cf. the Tboli rendering of “at the end of” in 2.21).

Go after, see on “come after” in 9.23.

Quoted with permission from Reiling, J. and Swellengrebel, J.L. A Handbook on the Gospel of Luke. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1971. For this and other handbooks for translators see here . Make sure to also consult the Handbook on the Gospel of Mark for parallel or similar verses.