diff --git a/src/manipulation.js b/src/manipulation.js
index dec21ea0b..64a8785e0 100644
--- a/src/manipulation.js
+++ b/src/manipulation.js
@@ -40,7 +40,8 @@ var
 
 	// checked="checked" or checked
 	rchecked = /checked\s*(?:[^=]|=\s*.checked.)/i,
-	rcleanScript = /^\s*<!(?:\[CDATA\[|--)|(?:\]\]|--)>\s*$/g;
+
+	rcleanScript = /^\s*<!\[CDATA\[|\]\]>\s*$/g;
 
 // Prefer a tbody over its parent table for containing new rows
 function manipulationTarget( elem, content ) {
@@ -195,6 +196,12 @@ function domManip( collection, args, callback, ignored ) {
 								}, doc );
 							}
 						} else {
+
+							// Unwrap a CDATA section containing script contents. This shouldn't be
+							// needed as in XML documents they're already not visible when
+							// inspecting element contents and in HTML documents they have no
+							// meaning but we're preserving that logic for backwards compatibility.
+							// This will be removed completely in 4.0. See gh-4904.
 							DOMEval( node.textContent.replace( rcleanScript, "" ), node, doc );
 						}
 					}
diff --git a/test/unit/manipulation.js b/test/unit/manipulation.js
index 22e9ae747..3fe49aae9 100644
--- a/test/unit/manipulation.js
+++ b/test/unit/manipulation.js
@@ -2268,7 +2268,7 @@ QUnit.test( "domManip plain-text caching (trac-6779)", function( assert ) {
 
 QUnit.test( "domManip executes scripts containing html comments or CDATA (trac-9221)", function( assert ) {
 
-	assert.expect( 3 );
+	assert.expect( 4 );
 
 	jQuery( [
 		"<script type='text/javascript'>",
@@ -2293,6 +2293,17 @@ QUnit.test( "domManip executes scripts containing html comments or CDATA (trac-9
 		"//--><!]]>",
 		"</script>"
 	].join( "\n" ) ).appendTo( "#qunit-fixture" );
+
+	// ES2015 in Annex B requires HTML-style comment delimiters (`<!--` & `-->`) to act as
+	// single-line comment delimiters; i.e. they should be treated as `//`.
+	// See gh-4904
+	jQuery( [
+		"<script type='text/javascript'>",
+		"<!-- Same-line HTML comment",
+		"QUnit.assert.ok( true, '<!-- Same-line HTML comment' );",
+		"-->",
+		"</script>"
+	].join( "\n" ) ).appendTo( "#qunit-fixture" );
 } );
 
 testIframe(