diff --git a/boot/base/src/main/java/boot/App.java b/boot/base/src/main/java/boot/App.java
index 334f522d..e08f1dff 100644
--- a/boot/base/src/main/java/boot/App.java
+++ b/boot/base/src/main/java/boot/App.java
@@ -448,7 +448,7 @@ public class App {
         File bootcache   = mkFile(cachehome, "cache", "boot");
 
         localrepo        = config("BOOT_LOCAL_REPO");
-        cljversion       = config("BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION", "1.7.0");
+        cljversion       = config("BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION", "1.8.0");
         cljname          = config("BOOT_CLOJURE_NAME", "org.clojure/clojure");
         aetherfile       = mkFile(cachehome, "lib", appversion, aetherjar);
 
diff --git a/boot/core/src/boot/task/built_in.clj b/boot/core/src/boot/task/built_in.clj
index 40e89a16..c65fa972 100644
--- a/boot/core/src/boot/task/built_in.clj
+++ b/boot/core/src/boot/task/built_in.clj
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
                  ["" "BOOT_CERTIFICATES"         "Specify certificate file paths."]
                  ["" "BOOT_CLOJARS_REPO"         "Specify the url for the 'clojars' Maven repo."]
                  ["" "BOOT_CLOJARS_MIRROR"       "Specify the mirror url for the 'clojars' Maven repo."]
-                 ["" "BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION"      "The version of Clojure boot will provide (1.7.0)."]
+                 ["" "BOOT_CLOJURE_VERSION"      "The version of Clojure boot will provide (1.8.0)."]
                  ["" "BOOT_CLOJURE_NAME"         "The artifact name of Clojure boot will provide (org.clojure/clojure)."]
                  ["" "BOOT_COLOR"                "Set to 'no' to turn colorized output off."]
                  ["" "BOOT_EMIT_TARGET"          "Set to 'no' to disable automatic writing to target directory."]