diff --git a/elastic/errors.go b/elastic/errors.go
index 670a275..f6b5281 100644
--- a/elastic/errors.go
+++ b/elastic/errors.go
@@ -1,9 +1,9 @@
 package elastic
 
 import (
-	"encoding/json"
 	"errors"
 	"fmt"
+	"io"
 
 	"github.com/elastic/go-elasticsearch/v7/esapi"
 )
@@ -11,19 +11,6 @@ import (
 // ErrQueryTimeout is returned when the search query has timed out.
 var ErrQueryTimeout = errors.New("query timeout")
 
-// dumpRootCauses returns a string representation of all root_cause entries as:
-//   "type1: reason1; type2: reason2; ...; typeN: reasonN"
-func dumpRootCauses(rcs []interface{}) string {
-	var rcsStr string
-	for _, rc := range rcs {
-		rcsStr += fmt.Sprintf(
-			"; %s: %s",
-			rc.(map[string]interface{})["type"],
-			rc.(map[string]interface{})["reason"])
-	}
-	return rcsStr
-}
-
 // IsAPIError checks if an es response contains an error.
 // If so, it decodes the body and returns the error.
 func IsAPIError(res *esapi.Response) error {
@@ -31,20 +18,8 @@ func IsAPIError(res *esapi.Response) error {
 		return nil
 	}
 
-	var e map[string]interface{}
-	if err := json.NewDecoder(res.Body).Decode(&e); err != nil {
-		return err
-	}
-
-	if e["error"].(map[string]interface{})["root_cause"] != nil {
-		return fmt.Errorf("[%s] %s: %s%s",
-			res.Status(),
-			e["error"].(map[string]interface{})["type"],
-			e["error"].(map[string]interface{})["reason"],
-			dumpRootCauses(e["error"].(map[string]interface{})["root_cause"].([]interface{})))
-	}
-	return fmt.Errorf("[%s] %s: %s",
-		res.Status(),
-		e["error"].(map[string]interface{})["type"],
-		e["error"].(map[string]interface{})["reason"])
+	// read body and return as error
+	errMsg := make([]byte, 1024)
+	errMsgSize, _ := io.ReadFull(res.Body, errMsg)
+	return fmt.Errorf("[%s] %s", res.Status(), errMsg[:errMsgSize])
 }