In stage eight, Christian and Hopeful reach the Delectable Mountains on the outskirts of the Celestial City. They bathe and eat in the gardens and orchards that they discover in the foothills of the mountains, which belong to the Lord Emmanuel. They meet some kind shepherds who welcome them and say that the lord gave them the charge of offering protection to good pilgrims. The shepherds invite them to sleep.
The next morning the shepherds warn Christian and Hopeful of the nearby hills called Error and Caution, which lead some travelers to disaster. The remains of pilgrims, who have made false assumptions about the nature of resurrection, litter the ground beneath Error. Similarly, on the hill of Caution, blind travelers wander among tombs and get stuck there. Both these views show Christian and Hopeful what to avoid. They ask how the blind pilgrims came to wander among the tombs. The shepherds inform them that they tried to take a shortcut to the Mountains, which led instead to the Doubting Castle, where Giant Despair imprisoned them, put out their eyes, and left them to wander on the grounds of his estate.
The shepherds allow Christian and Hopeful to look through a telescope at the Celestial City. Christian and Hopeful tremble with so much excitement that they can hardly see through the glass. The shepherds bid them farewell, give them directions to the Delectable Mountains, and warn them not to sleep on the Enchanted Ground and to beware of someone named Flatterer. The narrator wakes up from his dream.
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