diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index f296c97d..22738adb 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -75,7 +75,6 @@ group :jekyll_optional_dependencies do
   platform :ruby, :mswin, :mingw, :x64_mingw do
     gem "classifier-reborn", "~> 2.2.0"
     gem "liquid-c", "~> 3.0"
-    gem "pygments.rb", "~> 1.0"
     gem "yajl-ruby", "~> 1.4"
   end
 
diff --git a/docs/_docs/liquid/tags.md b/docs/_docs/liquid/tags.md
index 50bed0cb..90b654b8 100644
--- a/docs/_docs/liquid/tags.md
+++ b/docs/_docs/liquid/tags.md
@@ -14,16 +14,23 @@ If you have page snippets that you use repeatedly across your site, an
 
 ## Code snippet highlighting
 
-Jekyll has built in support for syntax highlighting of over 60 languages
+Jekyll has built in support for syntax highlighting of over 100 languages
 thanks to [Rouge](http://rouge.jneen.net). Rouge is the default highlighter
 in Jekyll 3 and above. To use it in Jekyll 2, set `highlighter` to `rouge`
 and ensure the `rouge` gem is installed properly.
 
-Alternatively, you can use [Pygments](http://pygments.org) to highlight
-your code snippets. To use Pygments, you must have Python installed on your
-system, have the `pygments.rb` gem installed and set `highlighter` to
-`pygments` in your site's configuration file. Pygments supports [over 100
-languages](http://pygments.org/languages/)
+Alternatively, you can use [Pygments](http://pygments.org) to highlight your
+code snippets in Jekyll 3.x and below. To use Pygments, you must have Python
+installed on your system, have the `pygments.rb` gem installed and set
+`highlighter` to `pygments` in your site's configuration file. Pygments
+supports [over 100 languages](http://pygments.org/languages/)
+
+<div class="note info">
+  <p>Using Pygments has been deprecated and will not be officially supported in
+  Jekyll 4, meaning that the configuration setting <code>highlighter: pygments</code>
+  will automatically fall back to using <em>Rouge</em> which is written in Ruby
+  and 100% compatible with stylesheets for Pygments.</p>
+</div>
 
 To render a code block with syntax highlighting, surround your code as follows:
 
diff --git a/docs/_tutorials/orderofinterpretation.md b/docs/_tutorials/orderofinterpretation.md
index 5129526f..46cbd802 100644
--- a/docs/_tutorials/orderofinterpretation.md
+++ b/docs/_tutorials/orderofinterpretation.md
@@ -89,7 +89,7 @@ console.log('alert');
 ```
 {% endraw %}
 
-The `highlight` tag *is* Liquid. (Liquid passes the content to Rouge or Pygments for syntax highlighting.) As a result, this code will actually convert to HTML with syntax highlighting. Jekyll does not need the Markdown filter to process `highlight` tags.
+The `highlight` tag *is* Liquid. (Liquid passes the content to Rouge for syntax highlighting.) As a result, this code will actually convert to HTML with syntax highlighting. Jekyll does not need the Markdown filter to process `highlight` tags.
 
 ### Liquid mixed with JavaScript isn't rendered
 
diff --git a/features/site_configuration.feature b/features/site_configuration.feature
index 698c59bc..b2f88440 100644
--- a/features/site_configuration.feature
+++ b/features/site_configuration.feature
@@ -73,14 +73,6 @@ Feature: Site configuration
     And the _site directory should exist
     And I should see "<a href=\"https://www.google.com\">Google</a>" in "_site/index.html"
 
-  Scenario: Highlight code with pygments
-    Given I have an "index.html" page that contains "{% highlight ruby %} puts 'Hello world!' {% endhighlight %}"
-    When I run jekyll build
-    Then I should get a zero exit status
-    And the _site directory should exist
-    And I should see "Hello world!" in "_site/index.html"
-    And I should see "class=\"highlight\"" in "_site/index.html"
-
   Scenario: Highlight code with rouge
     Given I have an "index.html" page that contains "{% highlight ruby %} puts 'Hello world!' {% endhighlight %}"
     And I have a configuration file with "highlighter" set to "rouge"
diff --git a/lib/jekyll/tags/highlight.rb b/lib/jekyll/tags/highlight.rb
index 78e4f5ed..0b0fd0c8 100644
--- a/lib/jekyll/tags/highlight.rb
+++ b/lib/jekyll/tags/highlight.rb
@@ -33,14 +33,12 @@ module Jekyll
         suffix = context["highlighter_suffix"] || ""
         code = super.to_s.gsub(%r!\A(\n|\r)+|(\n|\r)+\z!, "")
 
-        is_safe = !!context.registers[:site].safe
-
         output =
           case context.registers[:site].highlighter
-          when "pygments"
-            render_pygments(code, is_safe)
           when "rouge"
             render_rouge(code)
+          when "pygments"
+            render_pygments(code, context)
           else
             render_codehighlighter(code)
           end
@@ -49,20 +47,6 @@ module Jekyll
         prefix + rendered_output + suffix
       end
 
-      def sanitized_opts(opts, is_safe)
-        if is_safe
-          Hash[[
-            [:startinline, opts.fetch(:startinline, nil)],
-            [:hl_lines,    opts.fetch(:hl_lines, nil)],
-            [:linenos,     opts.fetch(:linenos, nil)],
-            [:encoding,    opts.fetch(:encoding, "utf-8")],
-            [:cssclass,    opts.fetch(:cssclass, nil)],
-          ].reject { |f| f.last.nil? }]
-        else
-          opts
-        end
-      end
-
       private
 
       OPTIONS_REGEX = %r!(?:\w="[^"]*"|\w=\w|\w)+!
@@ -86,29 +70,10 @@ module Jekyll
         options
       end
 
-      def render_pygments(code, is_safe)
-        Jekyll::External.require_with_graceful_fail("pygments") unless defined?(Pygments)
-
-        highlighted_code = Pygments.highlight(
-          code,
-          :lexer   => @lang,
-          :options => sanitized_opts(@highlight_options, is_safe)
-        )
-
-        if highlighted_code.nil?
-          Jekyll.logger.error <<~MSG
-            There was an error highlighting your code:
-
-            #{code}
-
-            While attempting to convert the above code, Pygments.rb returned an unacceptable value.
-            This is usually a timeout problem solved by running `jekyll build` again.
-          MSG
-          raise ArgumentError, "Pygments.rb returned an unacceptable value "\
-          "when attempting to highlight some code."
-        end
-
-        highlighted_code.sub('<div class="highlight"><pre>', "").sub("</pre></div>", "")
+      def render_pygments(code, _context)
+        Jekyll.logger.warn "Warning:", "Highlight Tag no longer supports rendering with Pygments."
+        Jekyll.logger.warn "", "Using the default highlighter, Rouge, instead."
+        render_rouge(code)
       end
 
       def render_rouge(code)
diff --git a/test/test_tags.rb b/test/test_tags.rb
index 4141b13b..59cd190d 100644
--- a/test/test_tags.rb
+++ b/test/test_tags.rb
@@ -134,182 +134,6 @@ class TestTags < JekyllUnitTest
     end
   end
 
-  context "in safe mode" do
-    setup do
-      @tag = highlight_block_with_opts("text ")
-    end
-
-    should "allow linenos" do
-      sanitized = @tag.sanitized_opts({ :linenos => true }, true)
-      assert_equal true, sanitized[:linenos]
-    end
-
-    should "allow hl_lines" do
-      sanitized = @tag.sanitized_opts({ :hl_lines => %w(1 2 3 4) }, true)
-      assert_equal %w(1 2 3 4), sanitized[:hl_lines]
-    end
-
-    should "allow cssclass" do
-      sanitized = @tag.sanitized_opts({ :cssclass => "ahoy" }, true)
-      assert_equal "ahoy", sanitized[:cssclass]
-    end
-
-    should "allow startinline" do
-      sanitized = @tag.sanitized_opts({ :startinline => true }, true)
-      assert_equal true, sanitized[:startinline]
-    end
-
-    should "strip unknown options" do
-      sanitized = @tag.sanitized_opts({ :light => true }, true)
-      assert_nil sanitized[:light]
-    end
-  end
-
-  context "with the pygments highlighter" do
-    setup do
-      if jruby?
-        then skip(
-          "JRuby does not support Pygments."
-        )
-      end
-    end
-
-    context "post content has highlight tag" do
-      setup do
-        fill_post("test", "highlighter" => "pygments")
-      end
-
-      should "not cause a markdown error" do
-        refute_match(%r!markdown\-html\-error!, @result)
-      end
-
-      should "render markdown with pygments" do
-        assert_match(
-          %(<pre><code class="language-text" data-lang="text">) +
-          %(<span></span>test</code></pre>),
-          @result
-        )
-      end
-
-      should "render markdown with pygments with line numbers" do
-        assert_match(
-          %(<pre><code class="language-text" data-lang="text">) +
-          %(<span></span><span class="lineno">1 </span>test</code></pre>),
-          @result
-        )
-      end
-    end
-
-    context "post content has highlight with file reference" do
-      setup do
-        fill_post("./jekyll.gemspec", "highlighter" => "pygments")
-      end
-
-      should "not embed the file" do
-        assert_match(
-          %(<pre><code class="language-text" data-lang="text"><span></span>) +
-          %(./jekyll.gemspec</code></pre>),
-          @result
-        )
-      end
-    end
-
-    context "post content has highlight tag with UTF character" do
-      setup do
-        fill_post("Æ", "highlighter" => "pygments")
-      end
-
-      should "render markdown with pygments line handling" do
-        assert_match(
-          %(<pre><code class="language-text" data-lang="text">) +
-          %(<span></span>Æ</code></pre>),
-          @result
-        )
-      end
-    end
-
-    context "post content has highlight tag with preceding spaces & lines" do
-      setup do
-        code = <<~EOS
-
-
-               [,1] [,2]
-          [1,] FALSE TRUE
-          [2,] FALSE TRUE
-        EOS
-        fill_post(code, "highlighter" => "pygments")
-      end
-
-      should "only strip the preceding newlines" do
-        assert_match(
-          %(<pre><code class=\"language-text\" data-lang=\"text\">) +
-          %(<span></span>     [,1] [,2]),
-          @result
-        )
-      end
-    end
-
-    context "post content has highlight tag " \
-            "with preceding spaces & lines in several places" do
-      setup do
-        code = <<~EOS
-
-
-               [,1] [,2]
-
-
-          [1,] FALSE TRUE
-          [2,] FALSE TRUE
-
-
-        EOS
-        fill_post(code, "highlighter" => "pygments")
-      end
-
-      should "only strip the newlines which precede and succeed the entire block" do
-        assert_match(
-          %(<pre><code class=\"language-text\" data-lang=\"text\"><span></span>) +
-          %(     [,1] [,2]\n\n\n[1,] FALSE TRUE\n[2,] FALSE TRUE</code></pre>),
-          @result
-        )
-      end
-    end
-
-    context "post content has highlight tag with " \
-            "preceding spaces & Windows-style newlines" do
-      setup do
-        fill_post "\r\n\r\n\r\n     [,1] [,2]", "highlighter" => "pygments"
-      end
-
-      should "only strip the preceding newlines" do
-        assert_match(
-          %(<pre><code class="language-text" data-lang="text"><span></span>) +
-          %(     [,1] [,2]),
-          @result
-        )
-      end
-    end
-
-    context "post content has highlight tag with only preceding spaces" do
-      setup do
-        code = <<~EOS
-               [,1] [,2]
-          [1,] FALSE TRUE
-          [2,] FALSE TRUE
-        EOS
-        fill_post(code, "highlighter" => "pygments")
-      end
-
-      should "only strip the preceding newlines" do
-        assert_match(
-          %(<pre><code class=\"language-text\" data-lang=\"text\"><span></span>) +
-          %(     [,1] [,2]),
-          @result
-        )
-      end
-    end
-  end
-
   context "with the rouge highlighter" do
     context "post content has highlight tag" do
       setup do