They serve as a pattern and foreshadowing of [what has its true existence and reality in] the heavenly things (sanctuary). For when Moses was about to erect the tabernacle, he was warned by God, saying, “See that you make it all [exactly] according to the pattern which was shown to you on the mountain.”

For you have not come [as did the Israelites in the wilderness] to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to gloom and darkness and a raging windstorm,

For they could not bear the command, “If even a wild animal touches the mountain, it will be stoned [to death].”