16:3 the sea. Not just a third part of the sea will become blood, as it had once before (Revelation 8:8), but all of it. Sea water has an almost identical composition to that of human blood, so some small ingredient added to it by the angel will make it have the appearance of blood—not blood which would maintain life, however, but “as the blood of a dead man.” The sea will have completely fulfilled God’s purpose in the creation (in the new earth, there will be “no more sea”—Revelation 21:1), and all sea creatures will die in the noxious waters.