diff --git a/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/DefaultConfig.java b/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/DefaultConfig.java
index 03fd2cab..b9cd651c 100644
--- a/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/DefaultConfig.java
+++ b/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/DefaultConfig.java
@@ -85,7 +85,7 @@ public class DefaultConfig
     private String readVersionFromProperties() {
         try {
             Properties properties = new Properties();
-            properties.load(Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("sshj.properties"));
+            properties.load(DefaultConfig.class.getClassLoader().getResourceAsStream("sshj.properties"));
             String property = properties.getProperty("sshj.version");
             return "SSHJ_" + property.replace('-', '_'); // '-' is a disallowed character, see RFC-4253#section-4.2
         } catch (IOException e) {
diff --git a/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/common/SSHRuntimeException.java b/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/common/SSHRuntimeException.java
index 022adcd8..b9afd48f 100644
--- a/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/common/SSHRuntimeException.java
+++ b/src/main/java/net/schmizz/sshj/common/SSHRuntimeException.java
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ public class SSHRuntimeException
     }
 
     public SSHRuntimeException(Throwable cause) {
-        this(null, cause);
+        this(cause.getMessage(), cause);
     }
 
 }