Exegesis:

eklaion de pantes kai ekoptonto autēn ‘and all were weeping and beating their breasts for her.’ Note the durative aspect of the imperfect tense. pantes is best taken to refer to the people in the house. For klaiō cf. on 7.32.

koptomai (also 23.27) ‘to beat one’s breast as an act of mourning,’ ‘to mourn greatly.’

mē klaiete ‘stop weeping.’

ou gar apethanen alla katheudei ‘for she has not died but she is asleep.’ The difference between apethanen and tethnēken (v. 49) is that the former refers to the moment of dying as a punctiliar event and the latter to her being dead as a permanent situation. katheudei (also 22.46) may refer to natural sleep, or, figuratively to the sleep of death, preferably the former because of the contrast with apethanen.

Translation:

Were weeping and bewailing her, or, ‘were weeping and wailing because of her,’ cf. ‘called cried for her’ (Sranan Tongo, using an idiom for loud lamentation). The pronoun goes with both verbs, which are closely connected syntactically, and also semantically, cf. on 7.32 and reference; one of them may better be subordinated, cf. e.g. ‘wept-over her, wailing’ (Balinese). To bewail must often be rendered by the same term as used for “to wail” in 7.32, although the Greek verb used here seems to refer to outward behaviour, gestures etc., suggestive of grief and mourning rather than to sounds or songs of lamentation.

Do not weep, or, ‘stop weeping,’ ‘weep no more,’ mentioning only one of the preceding verbs, but referring to the situation in its totality.

She is not dead but sleeping is strongly contrastive, cf. ‘she has not died, (on-the-contrary) she is asleep.’

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.