diff --git a/lib/libesp32/berry/src/be_jsonlib.c b/lib/libesp32/berry/src/be_jsonlib.c
index 1d7049ea1..c0c764792 100644
--- a/lib/libesp32/berry/src/be_jsonlib.c
+++ b/lib/libesp32/berry/src/be_jsonlib.c
@@ -183,6 +183,10 @@ static const char* parser_string(bvm *vm, const char *json)
                 }
             }
             be_assert(ch == '"');
+            /* require the stack to have some free space for the string, 
+               since parsing deeply nested objects might
+               crash the VM due to insufficient stack space. */
+            be_stack_require(vm, 1 + BE_STACK_FREE_MIN);
             be_pushnstring(vm, buf, cast_int(dst - buf));
             be_free(vm, buf, len);
             return json + 1; /* skip '"' */
diff --git a/lib/libesp32/berry/tests/json.be b/lib/libesp32/berry/tests/json.be
index 6e1aaaf8d..3664ba08b 100644
--- a/lib/libesp32/berry/tests/json.be
+++ b/lib/libesp32/berry/tests/json.be
@@ -34,6 +34,12 @@ assert_load_failed('{"ke: 1}')
 assert_load_failed('{"key": 1x}')
 assert_load_failed('{"key"}')
 assert_load_failed('{"key": 1, }')
+# insanely long, nested object
+var text = 'null'
+for i : 0 .. 200
+    text = '{"nested":' + text + ', "num": 1, "bool": true, "str": "abc", "n": null, "arr": [1, 2, 3]}'
+end
+json.load(text) # do nothing, just check that it doesn't crash
 
 # dump tests