- At last, Christian and Hopeful arrive at the Delectable Mountains. There they rest themselves, washing in the streams, eating the fruit, and gazing on the beauty of the place.
- They encounter some shepherds with their flocks who inform them that the mountains are Immanuel's Land.
- The sheep, they explain, also belong to the Lord since he gave up his life for them.
- Nearby is the Celestial City, but the shepherds (whose names are Knowledge, Experience, Watchful, and Sincere) offer the pilgrims rest before they continue.
- The next day, after a good night's rest, the shepherds decide to show the pilgrims some of the wonders of the Mountains.
- First they go to a hill called Error. From the top, the shepherds point down to a number of bodies that lie fallen and mangled below. These are identified as Hymeneus and Philetus, who rose too high on the confidence of their own false ideas.
- Second, they all go to another mountain called Caution. Looking out, they see several men walking blind among an area of tombs that they often stumble against.
- The shepherds explain that these men also ended up in Doubting Castle and eventually had their eyes put out by the Giant.
- The shepherds justify this with the verse from Proverbs 21:16: "He that wandereth out of the way of understanding, shall remain in the congregation of the dead" (P630).
- Christian and Hopeful are pushed to tears by the sight, thinking what could have become of them.
- Finally the Shepherds take them to the bottom of a hill where there is a door. They are told to look in, but only perceive smoke, darkness, the sound of someone in agony and the smell of brimstone.
- Christian and Hopeful are told that "this is a by-way to Hell" (P631), one where hypocrites in particular, like Judas and Esau, enter.
- Hopeful recognizes that those hypocrites had the appearance of pilgrims like themselves for a while. From this they realize that they will have to stay on their guards against sin and look for strength when they need it.
- When the pilgrims are ready to continue on their way, the shepherds take them to see the gates to the Celestial City through their telescope.
- Having seen the by-way to Hell, however, both are too shaken to hold the telescope still and aren't able to clearly make out the gates, though they do recognize something vaguely splendid.
- As they are leaving, one shepherd gives them written directions for the way.
- A second warns them of the Flatterer; a third warns them not to sleep on the Enchanted Ground, and a fourth bids them "God-speed" (P640).
- At this point, the narrator tells us that he awoke from his dream, only to pick up in the very next sentence by saying "I slept and dreamed again" (P641).