diff --git a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/SearchService.java b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/SearchService.java
index a52589c8641..0d116f264b9 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/SearchService.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/SearchService.java
@@ -533,9 +533,6 @@ public class SearchService extends AbstractLifecycleComponent<SearchService> imp
         DefaultSearchContext context = new DefaultSearchContext(idGenerator.incrementAndGet(), request, shardTarget, engineSearcher, indexService, indexShard, scriptService, pageCacheRecycler, bigArrays, threadPool.estimatedTimeInMillisCounter(), parseFieldMatcher, defaultSearchTimeout);
         SearchContext.setCurrent(context);
         try {
-            if (request.source() != null) {
-                request.source().rewrite(context.getQueryShardContext());
-            }
             if (request.scroll() != null) {
                 context.scrollContext(new ScrollContext());
                 context.scrollContext().scroll = request.scroll();
diff --git a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilder.java b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilder.java
index 99ee939d15b..e60e6c5a0a0 100644
--- a/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilder.java
+++ b/core/src/main/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilder.java
@@ -1435,16 +1435,4 @@ public final class SearchSourceBuilder extends ToXContentToBytes implements Writ
                 && Objects.equals(profile, other.profile);
     }
 
-    /**
-     * Rewrites the internal query builders in-place
-     */
-    public void rewrite(QueryRewriteContext rewriteContext) throws IOException {
-        if (queryBuilder != null) {
-            queryBuilder = QueryBuilder.rewriteQuery(queryBuilder, rewriteContext);
-        }
-        if (postQueryBuilder != null) {
-            postQueryBuilder = QueryBuilder.rewriteQuery(postQueryBuilder, rewriteContext);
-        }
-    }
-
 }
diff --git a/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilderTests.java b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilderTests.java
index 5321d732be9..93577325070 100644
--- a/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilderTests.java
+++ b/core/src/test/java/org/elasticsearch/search/builder/SearchSourceBuilderTests.java
@@ -488,14 +488,4 @@ public class SearchSourceBuilderTests extends ESTestCase {
         String query = "{ \"post_filter\": {} }";
         assertParseSearchSource(builder, new BytesArray(query));
     }
-
-    public void testRewrite() throws IOException {
-        SearchSourceBuilder builder = new SearchSourceBuilder();
-        builder.query(new BoolQueryBuilder());
-        TermQueryBuilder tqb = new TermQueryBuilder("foo", "bar");
-        builder.postFilter(new WrapperQueryBuilder(tqb.toString()));
-        builder.rewrite(new QueryRewriteContext(null, null, indicesQueriesRegistry));
-        assertEquals(new MatchAllQueryBuilder(), builder.query());
-        assertEquals(tqb, builder.postFilter());
-    }
 }