In Hesiod’s account of Pandora, Zeus ordered her creation as punishment for humanity receiving fire.
The backstory begins with Prometheus taking fire from the gods and giving it to humans. Zeus responds by devising a countermeasure rather than simply reclaiming the stolen fire. He instructs the other gods to create Pandora, a woman whose arrival will bring troubles to mortal life.
Hesiod presents Zeus as the chief authority directing this sequence in Works and Days. Hephaestus forms Pandora from earth, while other gods contribute gifts or qualities. The story therefore links Pandora’s creation directly to the conflict between Zeus and Prometheus.
This detail is sometimes simplified into the claim that Zeus personally made Pandora. Hesiod’s narrative is more specific: Zeus commands the project, but Hephaestus physically fashions her and several deities participate in preparing her. The myth also differs from later retellings that treat Pandora as an accidental curiosity-seeker rather than part of Zeus’s deliberate punishment.