diff --git a/jinja2/exceptions.py b/jinja2/exceptions.py
index 9002521..f38d347 100644
--- a/jinja2/exceptions.py
+++ b/jinja2/exceptions.py
@@ -9,8 +9,7 @@
     :license: BSD, see LICENSE for more details.
 """
 import six
-from six.moves import map
-from six.moves import zip
+from six.moves import map, zip
 
 
 class TemplateError(Exception):
@@ -66,7 +65,7 @@
     def __init__(self, names=(), message=None):
         if message is None:
             message = u'none of the templates given were found: ' + \
-                      u', '.join(map(unicode, names))
+                      u', '.join(map(six.text_type, names))
         TemplateNotFound.__init__(self, names and names[-1] or None, message)
         self.templates = list(names)
 
@@ -86,12 +85,9 @@
         self.translated = False
 
     def __str__(self):
-        return six.text_type(self).encode('utf-8')
+        s = self.__unicode__()
+        return s if six.PY3 else s.encode('utf-8')
 
-    # unicode goes after __str__ because we configured 2to3 to rename
-    # __unicode__ to __str__.  because the 2to3 tree is not designed to
-    # remove nodes from it, we leave the above __str__ around and let
-    # it override at runtime.
     def __unicode__(self):
         # for translated errors we only return the message
         if self.translated: