Exegesis:
prosechete de heautois ‘be on your guard,’ cf. on 12.1, here followed by mēpote and subjunctive to indicate that against which one has to be on one’s guard.
mēpote barēthōsin humōn hai kardiai ‘lest your hearts be weighed down.’ For mēpote cf. on 4.11. For bareō cf. on 9.32; here it is used in the sense of being no longer sensitive to what is happening. The meaning kardia has here is ‘mind.’
en kraipalē kai methē kai merimnais biōtikais ‘by dissipation and drunkenness and anxieties of this life.’ For merimna cf. on 8.14.
kraipalē ‘intoxication’; ‘dissipation,’ ‘carousing.’
methē ‘drunkenness.’
biōtikos ‘belonging to daily life.’
kai epistē eph’ humas aiphnidios hē hēmera ekeinē ‘and (lest) that day come upon you suddenly,’ still dependent upon mēpote. The clause indicates what may be the consequences of the attitude described in the preceding clause. For ephistamai epi with accusative cf. on 2.9; here its meaning is almost ‘to set upon,’ ‘to catch.’ hē hēmera ekeinē is the day of the coming of the Son of man, cf. 17.30f.
aiphnidios ‘sudden.’ Here it goes with the predicate and means, ‘as a sudden one,’ hence to be rendered emphatically.
Translation:
Take heed to yourselves lest …, or, ‘take care that … not…,’ or in two sentences, ‘be on your guard; do not let…,’ and cf. on v. 8.
Lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, or, taking the nouns as subjects, ‘lest dissipation, etc. weigh down your hearts’ (cf. Sranan Tongo). A further shift to verbal clauses may lead to, ‘that you are not dissipated, etc.; if you do that (or, if you are so), your hearts will be weighed down.’ The phrase your hearts (are) weighed down contrasts with “look up and raise your heads” in v. 28; so occupied that they are not on the look-out for the coming of the Son of man; hence, ‘your hearts … closed for anything else,’ “your minds … dulled” (New English Bible, Translator’s New Testament), “yourselves … occupied” (Good News Translation), ‘your hearts die’ (Kele), ‘your hearts … made unfeeling’ (Shona 1966); or with a syntactic shift, ‘making-fiesta … has gone-to-your-hearts’ (Tzeltal, using an idiom for being engrossed in something, usually with unfavourable connotation). Some renderings used for dissipation, i.e. intemperate, or loose living (cf. on 15.13), are, ‘much-eating’ (Shona 1963, using an intensive form of the verb), ‘feasting’ (Balinese, similarly Tzeltal, see above), ‘fullness of bellies’ (Zarma, using an idiom for satisfying all kinds of physical desires). For drunkenness see 12.45. Cares of this life, i.e. excessive care for the daily necessities of life; hence, ‘worries/anxiety for your livelihood.’ ‘much-thinking (intensive verbal form) about what is of this life’ (Shona 1966), ‘worrying/fretting over what you have to live on.’ Cf. also on 8.14 and 12.22.
That day, or less generically, ‘that awful day’; or quite explicitly, ‘the day the Son of man comes.’
Come upon you suddenly, or, “takes you by surprise” (An American Translation). In the receptor language a ‘day’ may not ‘come,’ however, but ‘break,’ ‘dawn,’ etc., or a personal subject may be required, e.g. ‘you shall see the day dawn.’ Suddenly, or, ‘quite unexpectedly,’ ‘when you do not expect it at all.’
Like a snare, see v. 35.
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.