Text:

After agrupneite ‘watch’ Textus Receptus, Soden, Vogels, and Souter add kai proseuchesthe ‘and pray,’ which is omitted by the majority of modern editions of the Greek text.

Exegesis:

blepete (cf. v. 23) ‘watch out!’ ‘beware!’

agrupneite (only here in Mark) ‘keep awake!,’ ‘be alert!’

ho kairos (cf. 1.15) ‘the time’: here, of course, as an eschatological term, it refers to the last time, the time of crisis; Translator’s New Testament ‘the appointed time.’

Translation:

For take heed see verse 23.

The time is here to be understood in terms of ‘an occasion,’ in other words, a point of time, not duration of time. This meaning is translatable as ‘occasion,’ ‘occurrence,’ or ‘this happening.’

Watch is translatable in some languages as ‘keep on looking’ (Tzotzil) or ‘wait and see’ (Tzeltal).

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 .