diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index 2dbc7b86fe..69622b4231 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -9,8 +9,10 @@ New themes:
 
 - none.
 
-Core Changes:
+Parser Engine Changes:
 
+- add `before:highlight` plugin API callback (#2395) [Josh Goebel][]
+- add `after:highlight` plugin API callback (#2395) [Josh Goebel][]
 - split out parse tree generation and HTML rendering concerns (#2404) [Josh Goebel][]
 - every language can have a `name` attribute now (#2400) [Josh Goebel][]
 - improve regular expression detect (less false-positives) (#2380) [Josh Goebel][]
diff --git a/docs/api.rst b/docs/api.rst
index 646b1d2f67..deb6f496c2 100644
--- a/docs/api.rst
+++ b/docs/api.rst
@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ Returns an object with the following properties:
 * ``value``: HTML string with highlighting markup
 * ``top``: top of the current mode stack
 * ``illegal``: boolean representing whether any illegal matches were found
+* ``code``: the original raw code
 
 
 ``highlightAuto(code, languageSubset)``
diff --git a/docs/plugin-api.rst b/docs/plugin-api.rst
index 83f3fa1ffd..4b9397ddf6 100644
--- a/docs/plugin-api.rst
+++ b/docs/plugin-api.rst
@@ -61,6 +61,46 @@ This approach is best for simpler plugins.
 Callbacks
 ---------
 
+before:highlight({code, language})
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+This callback function is passed a context object with two keys:
+
+code
+  The code to be highlighted.
+
+language
+  The language grammar that should be used for highlighting.
+
+Your plugin may modify either value and those new values will be used as input
+to the highlighting engine.  If you add a ``result`` key to the object that
+result will be returned as the overall result and the internal highlighting code
+will never even be called.
+
+If you're plugin plans to make its own recursive calls to ``highlight`` you'll
+need to manually handle this. Each time ``highlight`` is called your plugin
+callbacks will also be called - making it easy to get into an infinite loop.
+You'll likely need to use a class based plugin and add a guard so that your
+plugin code is only triggered on the initial call to ``highlight`` and not on
+any internal calls your plugin itself is making.
+
+Note: This callback does not fire from highlighting resulting from auto-language detection.
+
+It returns nothing.
+
+
+after:highlight(result)
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+
+This callback function is passed the ``result`` object after highlighting is
+complete. Your plugin may make any changes it desires to the result object
+and that will be the final return value of the initial call to ``highlight``.
+
+Note: This callback does not fire from highlighting resulting from auto-language detection.
+
+It returns nothing.
+
+
 after:highlightBlock({block, result})
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 
diff --git a/src/highlight.js b/src/highlight.js
index e14338e5e6..2b97470e3a 100644
--- a/src/highlight.js
+++ b/src/highlight.js
@@ -89,10 +89,34 @@ const HLJS = function(hljs) {
    * @property {string} language - the language name
    * @property {number} relevance - the relevance score
    * @property {string} value - the highlighted HTML code
+   * @property {string} code - the original raw code
    * @property {mode} top - top of the current mode stack
    * @property {boolean} illegal - indicates whether any illegal matches were found
   */
   function highlight(languageName, code, ignore_illegals, continuation) {
+    var context = {
+      code,
+      language: languageName
+    };
+    // the plugin can change the desired language or the code to be highlighted
+    // just be changing the object it was passed
+    fire("before:highlight", context);
+
+    // a before plugin can usurp the result completely by providing it's own
+    // in which case we don't even need to call highlight
+    var result = context.result ?
+      context.result :
+      _highlight(context.language, context.code, ignore_illegals, continuation);
+
+    result.code = context.code;
+    // the plugin can change anything in result to suite it
+    fire("after:highlight", result);
+
+    return result;
+  }
+
+  // private highlight that's used internally and does not fire callbacks
+  function _highlight(languageName, code, ignore_illegals, continuation) {
     var codeToHighlight = code;
 
     function endOfMode(mode, lexeme) {
@@ -157,7 +181,7 @@ const HLJS = function(hljs) {
       }
 
       var result = explicit ?
-                   highlight(top.subLanguage, mode_buffer, true, continuations[top.subLanguage]) :
+                   _highlight(top.subLanguage, mode_buffer, true, continuations[top.subLanguage]) :
                    highlightAuto(mode_buffer, top.subLanguage.length ? top.subLanguage : undefined);
 
       // Counting embedded language score towards the host language may be disabled
@@ -402,7 +426,7 @@ const HLJS = function(hljs) {
     };
     var second_best = result;
     languageSubset.filter(getLanguage).filter(autoDetection).forEach(function(name) {
-      var current = highlight(name, code, false);
+      var current = _highlight(name, code, false);
       current.language = name;
       if (current.relevance > second_best.relevance) {
         second_best = current;