diff --git a/Gemfile b/Gemfile
index ad610dc..9adab53 100644
--- a/Gemfile
+++ b/Gemfile
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ gem 'ruby-augeas', rbaugversion
 group :development, :unit_tests do
   gem 'rake', ' < 11.0',                                   :require => false if RUBY_VERSION =~ /^1\.8/
   gem 'rspec', '< 3.2',                                    :require => false if RUBY_VERSION =~ /^1\.8/
+  gem 'json', '< 2.0',                                     :require => false if RUBY_VERSION =~ /^1\.8/
   gem 'rspec-puppet',                                      :require => false
   gem 'puppetlabs_spec_helper',                            :require => false
   gem 'metadata-json-lint',                                :require => false