diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/commons/lang/text/translate/CharSequenceTranslator.java b/src/java/org/apache/commons/lang/text/translate/CharSequenceTranslator.java
index a38fe0f23..ec2cf389a 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/commons/lang/text/translate/CharSequenceTranslator.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/commons/lang/text/translate/CharSequenceTranslator.java
@@ -21,8 +21,6 @@
 import java.io.StringWriter;
 import java.util.Locale;
 
-import org.apache.commons.lang.UnhandledException;
-
 /**
  * An API for translating text. 
  * Its core use is to escape and unescape text. Because escaping and unescaping 
@@ -60,7 +58,7 @@ public final String translate(CharSequence input) {
             return writer.toString();
         } catch (IOException ioe) {
             // this should never ever happen while writing to a StringWriter
-            throw new UnhandledException(ioe);
+            throw new RuntimeException(ioe);
         }
     }
 
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/commons/lang/text/translate/UnicodeUnescaper.java b/src/java/org/apache/commons/lang/text/translate/UnicodeUnescaper.java
index 0554e4bd7..638e75ecf 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/commons/lang/text/translate/UnicodeUnescaper.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/commons/lang/text/translate/UnicodeUnescaper.java
@@ -19,8 +19,6 @@
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.Writer;
 
-import org.apache.commons.lang.UnhandledException;
-
 /**
  * Translates escaped unicode values of the form \\u+\d\d\d\d back to 
  * unicode.
@@ -49,7 +47,7 @@ public int translate(CharSequence input, int index, Writer out) throws IOExcepti
                         int value = Integer.parseInt(unicode.toString(), 16);
                         out.write((char) value);
                     } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
-                        throw new UnhandledException("Unable to parse unicode value: " + unicode, nfe);
+                        throw new RuntimeException("Unable to parse unicode value: " + unicode, nfe);
                     }
                     return i + 4;
                 } else {
diff --git a/src/test/org/apache/commons/lang/ClassUtilsTest.java b/src/test/org/apache/commons/lang/ClassUtilsTest.java
index 48cf3ae74..48986d6f6 100644
--- a/src/test/org/apache/commons/lang/ClassUtilsTest.java
+++ b/src/test/org/apache/commons/lang/ClassUtilsTest.java
@@ -562,7 +562,7 @@ public void testGetClassClassNotFound() throws Exception {
     }
 
     public void testGetClassInvalidArguments() throws Exception {
-        assertGetClassThrowsIllegalArgument( null );
+        assertGetClassThrowsNullPointerException( null );
         assertGetClassThrowsClassNotFound( "[][][]" );
         assertGetClassThrowsClassNotFound( "[[]" );
         assertGetClassThrowsClassNotFound( "[" );
@@ -651,8 +651,8 @@ private void assertGetClassThrowsException( String className, Class exceptionTyp
         }
     }
 
-    private void assertGetClassThrowsIllegalArgument( String className ) throws Exception {
-        assertGetClassThrowsException( className, IllegalArgumentException.class );
+    private void assertGetClassThrowsNullPointerException( String className ) throws Exception {
+        assertGetClassThrowsException( className, NullPointerException.class );
     }
 
     private void assertGetClassThrowsClassNotFound( String className ) throws Exception {