Exegesis:

tote elegen autois ‘then he said to them,’ introductory formula which serves not to introduce a new discourse, but to emphasize the significance of what follows.

(V. 11) seismoi te megaloi ‘and there will be great earthquakes,’ going with esontai. seismos. te corresponds with kai before kata topous, and the second kai serves to connect limoi and loimoi, ‘there will be both great earthquakes and plagues and famines,’ thus bringing out that two groups of events are envisaged, i.e. catastrophes in nature, and human afflictions.

kata topous ‘in various places.’ Syntactically the phrase goes with what follows, but not to the extent that the earthquakes do not occur in various places.

limoi kai loimoi esontai ‘there will be famines and plagues.’

loimos ‘pestilence,’ ‘plague,’ ‘contagious disease.’

phobētra te kai … sēmeia megala estai ‘there will be terrors and … great signs.’ te kai connects phobētra and sēmeia as belonging closely together. Hence megala goes with both substantives.

phobētron ‘terror,’ ‘terrible event,’ here probably referring to cosmic catastrophes.

ap’ ouranou ‘from heaven,’ ‘from the sky,’ going with both phobētra and sēmeia.

Translation:

Then he said, preferably, “he went on to say” (Good News Translation).

Nation will rise against nation, or, ‘nations will defy each other’ (Bahasa Indonesia RC). Instead of nation, or, ‘people/tribe,’ one may have to use ‘men of a nation, or, tribe, or, country’ (cf. Tae,’ Western Highland Purepecha).

(V. 11) In various places, or, ‘now here, then there’ (Nieuwe Vertaling), should be given such a position in the sentence that it can qualify the three nouns, e.g. at the very end (some English versions), or at the very beginning (Javanese).

Famines, see on 4.25.

Pestilences, or, ‘spreading illness (i.e. epidemic)’ (Tae’), ‘the bowing-down of stalks-of-reed’ (Toraja-Sa’dan using a figurative phrase, comparing the people falling down in an epidemic with broken rushes).

Terrors and great signs, or, ‘great terrifying things and signs’; or, because of the close relationship between the two nouns, ‘terrifying and great signs,’ ‘great signs that cause people to fear’ (Tae’ 1933). Signs. Some languages have a distinctive term for things that foreshadow coming events, e.g. “portents” (The Four Gospels – a New Translation, similarly Balinese).

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.