diff --git a/activesupport/lib/active_support/json/decoding.rb b/activesupport/lib/active_support/json/decoding.rb
index 5eb8c0fd7d..ed64c3117b 100644
--- a/activesupport/lib/active_support/json/decoding.rb
+++ b/activesupport/lib/active_support/json/decoding.rb
@@ -43,14 +43,31 @@ module ActiveSupport
           end
 
           if marks.empty?
-            json.gsub(/\\\//, '/')
+            json.gsub(/\\([\\\/]|u[[:xdigit:]]{4})/) do
+              ustr = $1
+              if ustr.starts_with?('u')
+                [ustr[1..-1].to_i(16)].pack("U")
+              elsif ustr == '\\'
+                '\\\\'
+              else
+                ustr
+              end
+            end
           else
             left_pos  = [-1].push(*marks)
             right_pos = marks << scanner.pos + scanner.rest_size
             output    = []
             left_pos.each_with_index do |left, i|
-              scanner.pos = left.succ
-              output << scanner.peek(right_pos[i] - scanner.pos + 1)
+              output << json[left.succ..right_pos[i]].gsub(/\\([\\\/]|u[[:xdigit:]]{4})/) do
+                ustr = $1
+                if ustr.starts_with?('u')
+                  [ustr[1..-1].to_i(16)].pack("U")
+                elsif ustr == '\\'
+                '\\\\'
+                else
+                  ustr
+                end
+              end
             end
             output = output * " "
             
diff --git a/activesupport/test/json/decoding_test.rb b/activesupport/test/json/decoding_test.rb
index b88a00e584..c5816ea168 100644
--- a/activesupport/test/json/decoding_test.rb
+++ b/activesupport/test/json/decoding_test.rb
@@ -28,7 +28,9 @@ class TestJSONDecoding < Test::Unit::TestCase
     %(null)  => nil,
     %(true)  => true,
     %(false) => false,
-    %q("http:\/\/test.host\/posts\/1") => "http://test.host/posts/1"
+    %q("http:\/\/test.host\/posts\/1") => "http://test.host/posts/1",
+    %q("\u003cunicode\u0020escape\u003e") => "<unicode escape>",
+    %q("\\\\u0020skip double backslashes") => "\\u0020skip double backslashes"
   }
   
   TESTS.each do |json, expected|