so then let's not sleep, as the rest do, but let's watch and be sober.
but let us watch and be sober: Here are two imperatives, the one requiring mental alertness and the other stressing the need for moral behavior in which there is a conscious effort to live a balanced life, avoiding excess of all kinds. Noting that "sober" has the primary meaning of not being given to excess in drink, Vincent says it passes "into the ethical sense of calm, collected, circumspect" (46).