diff --git a/runtime/lua/vim/text.lua b/runtime/lua/vim/text.lua
index 0be3396464..d45c8021c6 100644
--- a/runtime/lua/vim/text.lua
+++ b/runtime/lua/vim/text.lua
@@ -7,10 +7,9 @@ local M = {}
 --- @param str string String to encode
 --- @return string : Hex encoded string
 function M.hexencode(str)
-  local bytes = { str:byte(1, #str) }
   local enc = {} ---@type string[]
-  for i = 1, #bytes do
-    enc[i] = string.format('%02X', bytes[i])
+  for i = 1, #str do
+    enc[i] = string.format('%02X', str:byte(i, i + 1))
   end
   return table.concat(enc)
 end
diff --git a/test/functional/lua/text_spec.lua b/test/functional/lua/text_spec.lua
index 9e77953c8c..be471bfd62 100644
--- a/test/functional/lua/text_spec.lua
+++ b/test/functional/lua/text_spec.lua
@@ -20,5 +20,11 @@ describe('vim.text', function()
         eq(input, vim.text.hexdecode(output))
       end
     end)
+
+    it('works with very large strings', function()
+      local input, output = string.rep('😂', 2 ^ 16), string.rep('F09F9882', 2 ^ 16)
+      eq(output, vim.text.hexencode(input))
+      eq(input, vim.text.hexdecode(output))
+    end)
   end)
 end)