1 Thessalonians 2:5

At any time. — Not only during the stay at Thessalonica, but neither at Thessalonica nor elsewhere, as the next verse shows. But as the Thessalonians can only be appealed to as evidence for their own experience, the writers therefore call God Himself to witness. At the same time, the absence of flattering words was a thing of which human witnesses could judge; the freedom from covetous designs was known to God alone.

Cloke of covetousness — i.e., some specious pretext, under cover of which we might gain a worldly advantage; so (though the Greek word is different) 1 Peter 2:16, “a cloke of maliciousness.”