diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 4b8dfe66db..5332c65c76 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
  * Parallel streaming for sstableloader (CASSANDRA-3668)
 Merged from 2.0:
  * Make batchlog replica selection rack-aware (CASSANDRA-6551)
+ * Suggest CTRL-C or semicolon after three blank lines in cqlsh (CASSANDRA-7142)
 Merged from 1.2:
  * Add Cloudstack snitch (CASSANDRA-7147)
  * Update system.peers correctly when relocating tokens (CASSANDRA-7126)
diff --git a/bin/cqlsh b/bin/cqlsh
index 9ba74cac90..3f543da322 100755
--- a/bin/cqlsh
+++ b/bin/cqlsh
@@ -519,6 +519,7 @@ class Shell(cmd.Cmd):
         #Python driver returns BLOBs as string, but we expect them as buffer()
         cassandra.cqltypes.BytesType.deserialize = staticmethod(cassandra.cqltypes.BytesType.validate)
         cassandra.cqltypes.CassandraType.support_empty_values = True
+        self.empty_lines = 0
 
     def set_expanded_cql_version(self, ver):
         ver, vertuple = full_cql_version(ver)
@@ -654,6 +655,7 @@ class Shell(cmd.Cmd):
     def reset_statement(self):
         self.reset_prompt()
         self.statement.truncate(0)
+        self.empty_lines = 0;
 
     def reset_prompt(self):
         if self.current_keyspace is None:
@@ -662,11 +664,16 @@ class Shell(cmd.Cmd):
             self.set_prompt(self.keyspace_prompt % self.current_keyspace)
 
     def set_continue_prompt(self):
+        if self.empty_lines >=3:
+            self.set_prompt("Statements are terminated with a ';'.  You can press CTRL-C to cancel an imcomplete statement.")
+            self.empty_lines = 0
+            return
         if self.current_keyspace is None:
             self.set_prompt(self.continue_prompt)
         else:
             spaces = ' ' * len(str(self.current_keyspace))
             self.set_prompt(self.keyspace_continue_prompt % spaces)
+        self.empty_lines += 1
 
     @contextmanager
     def prepare_loop(self):