What s the right way to decode a string that has special HTML entities in it

Question

Let's say I submit a service request and receive the following JSON response:

{
    "message": "We're unable to complete your request at this time."
}

All I know is that I want to decode that apostrophe; I have no idea why it is encoded that way (&#39').

Here is a jQuery-based method that sprang to mind:

function decodeHtml(html) {
    return $('<div>').html(html).text();
}

But that looks (very) clumsy. What might work better? Exists a "correct" approach?