Exegesis:

hōs pagis ‘like a trap,’ goes with the preceding clause in Nestle; this is followed in the majority of modern translations, cf. e.g. Revised Standard Version, Translator’s New Testament, New English Bible. The punctuation and reading GOOD NEWS BIBLE are followed by AV and Good News Translation.

hōs pagis gar epeleusetai ‘for like a trap it will come.’ Subject is hē hēmera ekeinē, eperchomai followed by epi (cf. on 1.35) is equivalent to eperchomai with dative (cf. on v. 26).

pagis ‘trap,’ ‘snare,’ here figuratively for a sudden and unexpected danger.

epi pantas tous kathēmenous epi prosōpon pasēs tēs gēs lit. ‘upon all who are sitting on the (sur)face of the whole earth,’ i.e. ‘all who are living on the whole earth.’ epi prosōpon meaning ‘upon’ is a Hebraism.

Translation:

The reading of GOOD NEWS BIBLE will result in a rendering like, ‘for like a snare it will come upon all…,’ or, if one has to be quite explicit, e.g. ‘just as a snare seizes a bird/animal, so will the day come upon all….’ For snare one may have to use, ‘noose,’ ‘trap,’ or ‘net’ (Medumba) for catching birds or wild animals.

The rendering of come upon may be coloured by the metaphor, e.g. ‘close upon,’ ‘catch,’ ‘fall upon.’

All who dwell upon the face of the whole earth, or, “all men, wherever they are, the whole world over” (New English Bible); in Balinese the equivalent idiom is, ‘all men under-the-vault-of the sky.’

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.