Exegesis:
en tē didachē autou ‘in his teaching,’ ‘while he was teaching’: didachē has here the active meaning of ‘act of teaching’ (cf. 1.22).
blepete apo (cf. 8.15) ‘watch out for,’ ‘be on the lookout against.’
tōn grammateōn tōn thelontōn ‘the scribes who like’: the participle thelontōn ‘liking’ having the article before it, is attributive, and so defines and particularizes the noun (‘the scribes’) it modifies. In essence Jesus is warning his disciples to watch out for those (particular) scribes who like to walk about, etc.: he is not, according to the wording of the text, accusing all scribes of ostentation and hypocrisy.
thelō (only here in participial form in Mark) ‘wish,’ ‘want’: here with the meaning ‘like.’
en stolais (cf. 16.5) ‘in robes’: here refers to a long flowing robe, the tallith, “denoting scholarship and piety.”
peripatein (cf. 2.9) ‘to walk,’ ‘to walk about.’
aspasmous (only here in Mark) ‘greetings,’ ‘formal salutations’ given them in their quality as religious leaders, including, perhaps, a low obsequious bow (cf. Lagrange). It is to be noticed that aspasmous is in the accusative case, the direct object of the participle thelontōn ‘liking.’
agorais (cf. 6.56) ‘market places,’ ‘town squares.’
Translation:
In his teaching (see 2.13) is often rendered as a verb expression, ‘as he taught’ or ‘when he was teaching,’ with ‘the people’ as object of ‘teaching’ if one must use a transitive verb requiring an object.
He or his may require the substitution of ‘Jesus.’
Long robes may be translated as ‘long clothes’ or ‘long coats’ (Navajo).
To have salutations usually requires a shift of subject expression, e.g. ‘they enjoy to have people greet them’ or ‘they like to have people give them a greeting.’ In Tzeltal this is rendered as ‘a strong greeting’ to indicate the obsequious nature of the salutation.
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of Mark. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1961. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .