diff --git a/sjsonnet/src/sjsonnet/Std.scala b/sjsonnet/src/sjsonnet/Std.scala
index 92a41f16..68e9835f 100644
--- a/sjsonnet/src/sjsonnet/Std.scala
+++ b/sjsonnet/src/sjsonnet/Std.scala
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 package sjsonnet
 
 import java.io.StringWriter
+import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets.UTF_8
 import java.util.Base64
 
 import sjsonnet.Expr.Member.Visibility
@@ -483,6 +484,13 @@ object Std {
       Val.Arr(Base64.getDecoder().decode(s).map(i => Val.Lazy(Val.Num(i))))
     },
 
+    builtin("encodeUTF8", "s"){ (ev, fs, s: String) =>
+      Val.Arr(s.getBytes(UTF_8).map(i => Val.Lazy(Val.Num(i & 0xff))))
+    },
+    builtin("decodeUTF8", "arr"){ (ev, fs, arr: Val.Arr) =>
+      new String(arr.value.map(_.force.cast[Val.Num].value.toByte).toArray, UTF_8)
+    },
+
     builtinWithDefaults("uniq", "arr" -> None, "keyF" -> Some(Expr.False(0))) { (args, ev) =>
       val arr = args("arr")
       val keyF = args("keyF")
diff --git a/sjsonnet/test/resources/test_suite/stdlib.jsonnet b/sjsonnet/test/resources/test_suite/stdlib.jsonnet
index 25abd22d..e8ed6a64 100644
--- a/sjsonnet/test/resources/test_suite/stdlib.jsonnet
+++ b/sjsonnet/test/resources/test_suite/stdlib.jsonnet
@@ -327,6 +327,9 @@ std.assertEqual(std.base64Decode('SGVsbG8gV29ybGQ='), 'Hello World') &&
 std.assertEqual(std.base64Decode('SGVsbG8gV29ybA=='), 'Hello Worl') &&
 std.assertEqual(std.base64Decode(''), '') &&
 
+std.assertEqual(std.decodeUTF8([36, 194, 162, 224, 164, 185, 226, 130, 172, 240, 144, 141, 136]), '\u0024\u00a2\u0939\u20AC\uD800\uDF48') &&
+std.assertEqual(std.encodeUTF8('\u0024\u00a2\u0939\u20AC\uD800\uDF48'), [36, 194, 162, 224, 164, 185, 226, 130, 172, 240, 144, 141, 136]) &&
+
 std.assertEqual(std.sort([]), []) &&
 std.assertEqual(std.sort([1]), [1]) &&
 std.assertEqual(std.sort([1, 2]), [1, 2]) &&