Hesiod’s Works and Days says Zeus made Pandora as punishment for Prometheus’s gift of fire.
The poem presents Pandora’s creation after Prometheus tricks Zeus and steals fire for human beings. Zeus orders the gods to fashion a woman whose arrival will bring suffering to mortals. The account then describes Pandora’s journey to Epimetheus and the opening of the storage vessel.
Works and Days is not solely a mythological narrative. It is also a didactic poem about farming, justice, labor, social conduct, and the conditions of human life. Pandora’s story appears within that wider discussion of why human existence includes toil and hardship.
Hesiod’s Theogony mentions Pandora-related material but does not provide the same complete jar narrative. The Iliad and Odyssey also contain many myths but are not the source of this particular extended episode.