diff --git a/hapi-fhir-jpaserver-base/src/main/java/ca/uhn/fhir/jpa/subscription/BaseSubscriptionDeliverySubscriber.java b/hapi-fhir-jpaserver-base/src/main/java/ca/uhn/fhir/jpa/subscription/BaseSubscriptionDeliverySubscriber.java
index 800d88b1b48..cec5fb5134f 100644
--- a/hapi-fhir-jpaserver-base/src/main/java/ca/uhn/fhir/jpa/subscription/BaseSubscriptionDeliverySubscriber.java
+++ b/hapi-fhir-jpaserver-base/src/main/java/ca/uhn/fhir/jpa/subscription/BaseSubscriptionDeliverySubscriber.java
@@ -9,9 +9,9 @@ package ca.uhn.fhir.jpa.subscription;
  * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
  * You may obtain a copy of the License at
- * 
+ *
  *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
- * 
+ *
  * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
@@ -27,12 +27,12 @@ import org.hl7.fhir.instance.model.api.IIdType;
 import org.hl7.fhir.r4.model.Subscription;
 import org.slf4j.Logger;
 import org.slf4j.LoggerFactory;
+import org.springframework.lang.NonNullApi;
 import org.springframework.messaging.Message;
 import org.springframework.messaging.MessagingException;
 
 public abstract class BaseSubscriptionDeliverySubscriber extends BaseSubscriptionSubscriber {
 	private static final Logger ourLog = LoggerFactory.getLogger(BaseSubscriptionDeliverySubscriber.class);
-	private boolean myReloadResourceBeforeDelivery = true;
 
 	public BaseSubscriptionDeliverySubscriber(IFhirResourceDao<?> theSubscriptionDao, Subscription.SubscriptionChannelType theChannelType, BaseSubscriptionInterceptor theSubscriptionInterceptor) {
 		super(theSubscriptionDao, theChannelType, theSubscriptionInterceptor);
@@ -60,25 +60,20 @@ public abstract class BaseSubscriptionDeliverySubscriber extends BaseSubscriptio
 				msg.setSubscription(updatedSubscription);
 			}
 
-			if (myReloadResourceBeforeDelivery) {
-				// Reload the payload just in case any interceptors modified
-				// it before it was saved to the database. This is also
-				// useful for resources created in a transaction, since they
-				// can have placeholder IDs in them.
-				IIdType payloadId = msg.getPayloadId(getContext());
-				Class type = getContext().getResourceDefinition(payloadId.getResourceType()).getImplementingClass();
-				IFhirResourceDao dao = getSubscriptionInterceptor().getDao(type);
-				IBaseResource loadedPayload;
-				try {
-					loadedPayload = dao.read(payloadId);
-				} catch (ResourceNotFoundException e) {
-					// This can happen if a last minute failure happens when saving a resource,
-					// eg a constraint causes the transaction to roll back on commit
-					ourLog.warn("Unable to find resource {} - Aborting delivery", payloadId.getValue());
-					return;
-				}
-				msg.setPayload(getContext(), loadedPayload);
+			// Load the resource
+			IIdType payloadId = msg.getPayloadId(getContext());
+			Class type = getContext().getResourceDefinition(payloadId.getResourceType()).getImplementingClass();
+			IFhirResourceDao dao = getSubscriptionInterceptor().getDao(type);
+			IBaseResource loadedPayload;
+			try {
+				loadedPayload = dao.read(payloadId);
+			} catch (ResourceNotFoundException e) {
+				// This can happen if a last minute failure happens when saving a resource,
+				// eg a constraint causes the transaction to roll back on commit
+				ourLog.warn("Unable to find resource {} - Aborting delivery", payloadId.getValue());
+				return;
 			}
+			msg.setPayload(getContext(), loadedPayload);
 
 			handleMessage(msg);
 		} catch (Exception e) {
@@ -90,8 +85,4 @@ public abstract class BaseSubscriptionDeliverySubscriber extends BaseSubscriptio
 
 	public abstract void handleMessage(ResourceDeliveryMessage theMessage) throws Exception;
 
-	public void setReloadResourceBeforeDelivery(boolean theReloadResourceBeforeDelivery) {
-		myReloadResourceBeforeDelivery = theReloadResourceBeforeDelivery;
-	}
-
 }
diff --git a/hapi-fhir-jpaserver-base/src/main/java/ca/uhn/fhir/jpa/subscription/ResourceDeliveryMessage.java b/hapi-fhir-jpaserver-base/src/main/java/ca/uhn/fhir/jpa/subscription/ResourceDeliveryMessage.java
index bec9191f5f0..5034c26ed9a 100644
--- a/hapi-fhir-jpaserver-base/src/main/java/ca/uhn/fhir/jpa/subscription/ResourceDeliveryMessage.java
+++ b/hapi-fhir-jpaserver-base/src/main/java/ca/uhn/fhir/jpa/subscription/ResourceDeliveryMessage.java
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ import ca.uhn.fhir.context.FhirContext;
 import ca.uhn.fhir.rest.api.RestOperationTypeEnum;
 import com.fasterxml.jackson.annotation.*;
 import com.google.gson.Gson;
+import org.apache.commons.lang3.Validate;
 import org.hl7.fhir.instance.model.api.IBaseResource;
 import org.hl7.fhir.instance.model.api.IIdType;
 
@@ -41,8 +42,6 @@ public class ResourceDeliveryMessage {
 	private String mySubscriptionString;
 	@JsonIgnore
 	private transient IBaseResource myPayload;
-	@JsonProperty("payload")
-	private String myPayoadString;
 	@JsonProperty("payloadId")
 	private String myPayloadId;
 	@JsonProperty("operationType")
@@ -57,9 +56,7 @@ public class ResourceDeliveryMessage {
 	}
 
 	public IBaseResource getPayload(FhirContext theCtx) {
-		if (myPayload == null && myPayoadString != null) {
-			myPayload = theCtx.newJsonParser().parseResource(myPayoadString);
-		}
+		Validate.notNull(myPayload);
 		return myPayload;
 	}
 
@@ -87,7 +84,6 @@ public class ResourceDeliveryMessage {
 
 	public void setPayload(FhirContext theCtx, IBaseResource thePayload) {
 		myPayload = thePayload;
-		myPayoadString = theCtx.newJsonParser().encodeResourceToString(thePayload);
 	}
 
 	public void setPayloadId(IIdType thePayloadId) {
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 9de78fa9f31..5792e8842b5 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -1431,7 +1431,7 @@
 				<plugin>
 					<groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
 					<artifactId>versions-maven-plugin</artifactId>
-					<version>2.5</version>
+					<version>2.6-SNAPSHOT</version>
 					<configuration>
 						<processDependencyManagementTransitive>false</processDependencyManagementTransitive>
 					</configuration>
diff --git a/src/changes/changes.xml b/src/changes/changes.xml
index 076c8ee11e5..a97c12ab28f 100644
--- a/src/changes/changes.xml
+++ b/src/changes/changes.xml
@@ -244,6 +244,11 @@
 				a resource could be associated with the wrong entry in the response.
 				Thanks to GitHub user @jbalbien for the pull request!
 			</action>
+			<action type="add">
+				JPA subscription delivery queues no longer store the resource body in the
+				queue (only the ID), which should reduce the memory/disk footprint of the queue
+				when it grows long.
+			</action>
 		</release>
 		<release version="3.4.0" date="2018-05-28">
 			<action type="add">